Nathan Lukkes officially takes helm of SD's Board of Regents. Here's his vision for the future.
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Nathan Lukkes officially stepped into his role Thursday as the executive director and CEO of the South Dakota Board of Regents.
Lukkes takes the helm of the SDBOR after joining in 2014 as system assistant vice president for research and economic development, then nearly five years as the chief of staff and general counsel for the board. His general counsel position is now posted on the SDBOR website.
Before that, he also served as deputy commissioner for the South Dakota Governor’s Office of Economic Development from 2012 to 2014, legal services director for the South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation from 2009 to 2012, as an attorney in Sioux Falls, and 10 years of service in the South Dakota Army National Guard.
Lukkes sat down for an exclusive phone interview June 16 with the Argus Leader ahead of the board’s June 21-22 meeting at Dakota State University, which is when he will officially start his new job. Lukkes discussed his upcoming plans, his vision for the governing system of the state’s six public colleges, and a recent letter from Gov. Kristi Noem to the SDBOR on a variety of topics.
More: Noem to South Dakota universities: raise graduation rates, end drag shows, and more
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Argus Leader: What is your vision for the South Dakota Board of Regents during your tenure?
Nathan Lukkes: I’m incredibly grateful and humbled by the opportunity I have to play even a small part in ensuring future South Dakotans have the same opportunities I’ve had. I grew up in small-town South Dakota, and while our family was rich on things like love, hard work and character-building, we didn’t have a lot of extra money laying around. My parents instilled in me the importance of pursuing my education post-high school. I still remember enrolling at South Dakota State University as a freshman after high school and getting my financial aid paperwork back and seeing that I received a Pell grant. That was before I even knew what that meant. I was grateful for the fact the amount of money I owed was reduced.
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When we talk about things like the Freedom Scholarship or access and affordability, it hits close to home. I look back at the opportunities and doors opened by my education, and I want to make sure every kid growing up in South Dakota has a pathway to do the same. That's really the core of what drives me and gets me up every morning coming into the office, and what I hope to make sure happens in my tenure here at the board.
How has being general counsel of the SDBOR prepared you to be the executive director?
Lukkes: I’ve got some broad experience on how the universities operate in that realm and working with various stakeholders on campus to push initiatives forward. (Being chief of staff and general counsel) gave me a broad view on system operations. I’ve had the opportunity to work very closely with presidents, our senior staff and campus leadership on a whole host of issues. (It’s) certainly opened my eyes to the breadth of operations and issues on campus. All of that perspective and experiences really positioned me well to hit the ground running, realizing there are always the things you don't know that you don't know. We have a great team here in the office. We have a great board, great presidents on campus, and I'm grateful for all of the above and looking forward to continuing to work with them.
I’m curious about your experience. You have this legal experience and administrative experience in education, but not so much in the classroom teaching. What are you looking forward to learning about that?
Lukkes: I’m certainly looking forward to learning more on the academic front and leaning heavily on the subject matter experts that we have, both in our office as well as on campuses. I look forward to getting out and interacting with the folks on the ground as much as possible and learning firsthand from faculty. We do meet with the faculty senate in conjunction with each of our board meetings, so (I) certainly have some relationships there and have had ample opportunity to have some discussions and conversations around issues that they're dealing with (and) what's important to them. I’m certainly looking forward to getting out and working with them and the other academic leaders on campus to help advance those initiatives.
More: Gov. Kristi Noem appoints Judy Dittman to South Dakota Board of Regents
What do you see as the relationship with the South Dakota Department of Education and the K-12 system going forward?
Lukkes: We have great partnerships both with the Department of Education as well as our technical colleges. It's critically important to make sure we are not letting anything slip through the cracks when we talk about students (coming) from K-12 into higher education, and likewise with our technical colleges. There are occasions where we have students that enroll and decide our programs aren't right for them, and they want to go to the technical colleges. We’re creating pathways for seamless transfer for students going both ways.
We have some workforce challenges (in South Dakota) and two of the areas that frequently come up in the conversation are nursing and teachers. We can't produce enough nurses or teachers to fuel the workforce pipeline, and we don't see that demand going down anytime soon. We've recently announced an initiative with the SDDOE on a teacher apprenticeship program that’s going to provide an opportunity for at least 60 individuals currently working in school districts, but who don't have their teaching credentials yet, to get them fast-tracked in a two-year program to obtain their education credentials and degrees at either Dakota State University or Northern State University, so that they can continue serving in their communities and in the classroom as a teacher. We're looking forward to seeing how that initiative plays out, because it's a critical need, as well as what opportunities that initiative might open up in other areas.
There’s been discussion about lagging enrollment at the universities and a demographic cliff coming in the next couple of years. How will you work around those issues?
Lukkes: It's no secret that we have some demographic challenges facing us in the near future, and that the number of high school graduates just aren't going to be there going forward. This isn't unique to South Dakota. It's a national trend, and something that we're very aware of and are adjusting and preparing for. The competition in higher education with surrounding states is going to become more and more fierce in the years to come as they're all vying for a limited number of students. Historically, we’ve done fairly well in terms of our standing when things shift nationally.
More: South Dakota public universities see slight enrollment increase after 4-year decline
We know it's going to be tough, and we know there's going to be a lot of competition, but we just need to keep doing what we do. We need to sell South Dakota. South Dakota is a great place to live and work. We have a great education system, whether you’re talking about a two-year degree, four-year degree, professional medical school, whatever you want, we offer it in South Dakota and we do it well.
The other opportunity we have when we look at the declining enrollment trend is we have about 35% of our high school graduates that don't go on to any postsecondary education, so they're not going to a public, private, two-year, four-year, in-state, out-of-state. They're just not pursuing postsecondary education. I think that creates an opportunity for us to talk about access and affordability, getting out into the high schools and in front of every student that's graduating from South Dakota.
We realize higher education isn't for everybody, and there are all kinds of pathways in life. And there's nothing wrong with that, but we need to make sure we're having the discussions and making all of our South Dakotans know that when they graduate, if they want to go on to postsecondary education, whether it's at a technical college or one of our institutions, there’s a pathway for them. And we can help them work through the process.
More: Why nearly 36% of South Dakota’s high school graduates choose work over college
On affordability, I know that was something Gov. Noem mentioned in her recent letter to the board. Maybe you could talk a little more specifically about the kinds of things you are already working on in that aspect or maybe new things you want to implement?
Lukkes: We’ve had three years in a row of tuition freezes, which has really helped our competitive standing in the region with our surrounding states. In the first year of that, the board essentially froze tuition and fees on their own with no additional funding, so we had to make up the difference with cuts and other adjustments. Internally, and in the last two years, we were fortunate enough for the legislature to fund the tuition freeze. We’re grateful for that and the opportunities and positioning that's given us moving forward.
We also have Senate Bill 55, which came out of the 2020 legislative session, which was a taskforce of Regents, legislators, community leaders who really dug in and looked at ways to cut costs and operate more efficiently within the system to help our bottom line and help keep costs low to the students. We're diligently working on the various initiatives with a number of them already completed and many more well down the road toward completion. We're not letting that mindset or mentality go. We're continuing to look at areas and opportunities we might have to operate more efficiently and effectively without diminishing the product and service we're providing for our students.
More: South Dakota's university structure is about to get a major overhaul. Here's what that could mean.
Another item in Gov. Noem’s letter was about raising graduation rates. Is there a certain plan you have in mind to raise those rates?
Lukkes: We are committed and working to increase our graduation rates in South Dakota. It’s critical to our workforce shortages, and critical for the sake of our students, that we give them the support and resources they need to get them out the door with a degree.
Currently, we’re hovering around 59% for our six-year graduation rate across the system. We’re striving to get that up to 65%. Affordability is frequently the No. 1 challenge why students stop out or don’t complete. The Freedom Scholarship or additional financial support (can) bridge that gap. It may only be a few thousand per student, but that might be the difference between them dropping out between their first and second year, or staying through and getting their degree.
More: South Dakota's Freedom Scholarship gets $50M added boost from PREMIER, now at $225M
There are other students who have academic challenges. (We’re) making sure we're providing the support and services to allow our students to be successful in the classroom, whether it's remedial courses or otherwise.
There are also social challenges people face when they come to campus. We need to make sure we're working with them and helping them. Whether you’re a student from Sioux Falls, Faith or Tyndall, every student has different challenges, different circumstances, different issues they're dealing with. We need to make sure we are supporting them and providing them assistance and resources so they can be successful.
Next we’re going to get into some hot topics, if you don’t mind. There’s been a couple of things I’ve covered in the last few years on diversity: the transition of diversity centers to opportunity centers, and some of the debates on critical race theory or divisive concepts.
How do you feel those discussions went, and how much of a priority is diversity, equity and inclusion going forward for the SDBOR?
Lukkes: The opportunity centers that unfolded on our campuses in recent years have been a bit of a shift, but I think we've maintained a focus on the students and making sure every student on our campus has the access to the support and services needed to be successful. By and large, those efforts have been favorably received.
If you step back and look a little bit more globally or nationally, there's certainly a lot of press around diversity, equity and inclusion efforts nationally. We’re not currently engaged in the divisive narrative that you’re seeing play out in other states on the topic. That’s not something we're dealing with, and we don’t see that in South Dakota. I attribute that in large part to the opportunity centers, and the efforts and initiatives in our work with the governor's office, legislature and campuses in the last few years to really rethink and revisit how we do things in South Dakota while also keeping students first.
One of the other things Gov. Noem mentioned in her letter was free speech policies, tasking the SDBOR with removing any policy or procedure that prohibits students from exercising their right to free speech. I know there are policies on free speech and intellectual diversity at the SDBOR level, and at each campus. Is that something you are working on at this time?
Lukkes: We certainly support free speech. Across the system and on our campuses in the last four or five years, you see a lot of evidence to that effect.
Prior to 2019 when House Bill 1087 passed, which was the intellectual diversity act, the board implemented new policies and revised old policies to promote and enhance free speech on our campuses. We need to make sure we're creating a neutral playing field where all ideas can compete freely, and no voice is being shouted down or stifled.
There are always going to be one-offs or instances where a policy isn't followed or an employee could have made a better decision, and we deal with those as they come up. I'm not suggesting that we're perfect — nothing's ever perfect. I do believe we have a solid policy structure, and we continue to review that to look for ways we can enhance and clarify when confusion arises, to make sure we're doing all we can to support, promote and enhance free speech on our campuses.
Gov. Noem’s letter also referenced pronouns. What is your reaction, or next step, for that discussion?
Lukkes: In terms of next steps, I don't want to get out in front of our board meeting and having an opportunity to have conversations and vet ideas. We don’t currently require (or) mandate students use or have preferred pronouns. Compelling somebody to speak is just the same as censoring them from speaking. We aren't in the habit or business of requiring students to have (or use) preferred pronouns. If a student chooses to share or express their preferred pronouns, we're also not going to censor their speech.
On the pronoun topic, I think it becomes an issue when a trans student’s peers or professors don't respect the pronouns they use, not even that are “preferred,” those are just the pronouns they use for how they identify.
Lukkes: That's a fair point. I guess I would take it back a little and approach it a little bit differently in terms of, “We need to create and promote an environment of civility and mutual respect, regardless of what the issue of the day might be.” It's really about human decency and treating people with respect and engaging constructively. If we can do that, we can resolve any issue regardless of what specific topic we might be talking about in this space.
The next topic in Gov. Noem’s letter was about drag shows. I know the SDBOR recently passed a policy sparked by that discussion that would limit minors’ presence on campus to certain spaces or events. Noem wrote in her letter she wants to prohibit drag shows from taking place on university campuses.
How do you balance what legislators and the governor might want on this topic with what students have historically and traditionally done on campus, which is host drag shows?
Lukkes: On that topic, I would refer you back to the conversation we've had with the board and our recent policy that was implemented. As far as any future actions one way or the other, we need to wait until we have an opportunity to discuss things with the board and we'll see what, if anything, advances on that front in the future.
(The SDBOR) doesn’t make decisions, allow, approve or disapprove (events) based on the content or viewpoint of the expressive activity. If the event follows the appropriate protocol and complies with policy, the event will proceed accordingly.
More: Taking aim at drag shows, South Dakota Board of Regents pass 'minors on campus' policy
Is there anything else you want to say or add ?
Lukkes: I’m looking forward to the opportunity, and I’m excited to be able to continue building strong relationships with stakeholders across the state, whether that’s business leaders, legislators, partners at the technical colleges or otherwise. We have some great people in South Dakota, and we work well together. We’ve been the benefactors of some great legislative support in recent years. I think we’ve got a great team here in South Dakota, and I’m looking forward to continuing the work for them and building on all of the successes that we’ve had of late.
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Nathan Lukkes takes over as SD Board of Regents executive director
