10 minute read
Hilary About HUBER
What do you remember about meeting General Keith Huber?
Dr. Hilary Miller: He spoke at the ROTC award ceremony in spring 2014, and I was fortunate to sit next to him and was very impressed—and impressed with him as a speaker. So I asked him if he would speak at an Honors lecture series we were planning about veterans. He said yes, but wanted to schedule a full agenda. That November he met with cadets at PT [physical training], spoke to classes, discussed “making decisions during challenging times” with the deans, met with the president, and had the Honors lecture that evening. It was an incredibly full day for him—and for me [laughing].
During that time the Cope building was being renovated, and it was a disaster. There was all this asbestos abatement, and it looked like a war zone. I dropped him off to meet with Dr. McPhee, and after 10 minutes, Dr. McPhee asked me to join them and to “help get him on board. I want him to be hired by the University.” General Huber was kind of like, “I don’t even know what that means. We’re going to need to figure that out.” So he came back that weekend for the veterans football game. To me, that seems to be the real start of the relationship.
I had written up this white paper on why we needed a veterans center and a strong leader, and by Christmas, we learned from HR that General Huber could be hired temporarily as a nontenure-track faculty member. I was assigned to work for him 50%, and 50% for Mark Byrnes, who was then dean of Liberal Arts—which really meant I worked 100% for General Huber and still 50% for Mark Byrnes [laughing]! Having gone to West Point, General Huber had never been a traditional student. Even for his master’s degree, he was a night student because he never wanted to be away from his troops. He definitely did not have the attitude of “this is how we’ve always done it.” Every single thing that he would ask me, I’d have to ask myself, “Well, why do we do it that way?”
We worked all spring together. He was not willing to be hired full time until he truly believed that this University was honorable and that the president could actually do what he said he would do. We set about getting to know the community and higher ed. On Monday after Easter 2015, we met back with the president, who still wanted to hire him—the president always wanted to hire him. I remember having a conversation with then-Provost Brad Bartel right before General Huber’s first full day, and he said, “What’s he going to do all day? Is he just going to walk up and down the halls?” And I just replied, “Sir, no, he is not going to do that. He is going to be high impact, and you better buckle your seatbelt.”
He is going to be high impact, and you better buckle your seatbelt.
What impressed you about him from the start?
Everybody’s going to say the way he speaks, his experience, his humility. And all of those things are definitely true. But the fact is he could just be done. He had a full career. He could have found another job that was much higher paying. He was being courted by loads of different schools. And, if he wanted to work, he could do something that was definitely less challenging than taking on the VA and higher education.
I told him the other day, “You could have left active duty and said, ‘I have done the world some good,’ and been satisfied.” The University tries to make him take a day off—he’s supposed to take a day off every Friday in the summer, but today’s Friday, it’s summer, and he’s working. He was an officer below the general rank for more time than he was in the general rank, but he does not take directions well!
To answer your question, I am very, very amazed by his willingness to continue serving and to continue giving so much of himself to every person he meets. Then, of course, he does it humbly, articulately, and with brains and acumen. But the fact he’s even doing it at all is what always knocks me over.
So what do you think he means to MTSU and to veterans and the other military-connected members in the community?
You know he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do, and he’s going to speak his truth. He’s going to make sure you know where he stands on issues. He’s not going to be posturing. He just wants to serve; it’s not about an ego. He’s just about getting it done correctly.
And what are you amazed about that he has contributed to the center?
He is definitely a visionary, and people are willing to listen to him because he’s had incredible military experiences. And because he’s an outsider to higher ed, he makes people rethink the status quo. He likes to try to play this card: “I’m just a simple infantryman, and I’m not from higher ed, so I’m just going to throw this idea out for your consideration,” and no one can laugh because they’re like, “Oh, well, he’s new.” I started calling him on it, saying, “Sir, you have been here a decade—your tenure here is longer than some full professors.” But because he’s so genuine and he’s polite, people are willing to listen.
Really, he is very visionary, and he drives me nuts, because as a visionary, he doesn’t have to implement all these amazing things he comes up with. I do! But his ideas are fantastic. I always say yes. Now I might say, “Sir, hold on. Wait, back up for a second. How are we going to do this?” But I always say yes because I know it is always good and coming from the right place.
What do you think is the secret to how well you two work together?
Because we have a similar point of view: We want to work hard, we want things to be done well, and we want to serve military-connected people. None of it is about our own ego at all. In fact, both of us would prefer not to be out in front. Neither one of us needs to have any praise or thank you’s, and I believe both of our jobs are of vital importance. He is the person who is primarily creative and visionary, and I’m the one who directs, manages, and with our incredible team implements and gets the job done.
He just wants to serve; it’s not about an ego.
Do you guys ever disagree or not be on the same page, and if so, what happens?
Absolutely! People ask me regularly, “What’s going to happen if I say no to him?” And I just reply, “He will not care if you say no. But don’t blow hot air at him. Don’t say that’s the best idea ever and then don’t do it.” I tell him all the time, “Sir, we have to manage some expectations here,” or “We need to do this,” or “This is not right.” One of his frequent sayings is “people do things differently.” So, if he doesn’t like the way something is being done, I might remind him, “Sir, remember, people do things differently.” We both speak very frankly to each other. I consider his family as my family, and think that he would think the same.
What are some of the initiatives that you credit to him?
Everything. For instance, why do we have the partnership with the Opry? How does that relate to veterans? General Huber says if that is how people connect to us and they’re going to give us the stage, then I want to take advantage of their generosity and be very thankful. So whatever that person or organization has to offer generously, whether it’s music or NASCAR or ballet tickets, we want to humbly accept it. It brings veterans and their families to us, and then we are able to provide help.
We started the center out of broadcloth. Nobody else was doing veteran higher education at that time. There wasn’t even a model. We got to be the model. That first semester, General Huber said, “We’re going to have a stole ceremony.” I was the interim director of an invisible center and supposedly only working half time for him. I didn’t really have a way to even know who was a veteran. Yet that first stole ceremony was just amazing. We made it happen.
The 9/11 Remembrance, that was 100% his idea. And we have had one every year including during COVID. We livestream that event too, because we need people all over the world to remember.
Asked once about whether he could be a symbolic figure on campus, you said he would have to slow down long enough for somebody to make a symbol of him.
He is always here. He is everywhere. I think about how much all of us have changed in a decade, how much the world has changed. And to still get to do this really essential work is incredible. It is important for us to make sure that we live up to the Daniels family’s name. I told Mrs. Daniels when we open the center’s door every day, we see their names and we know that we must do an exceptional job, not just because it’s our own work ethic, but because we represent them. This is very much what each one of us believes. Perhaps what I told her also extends to General Huber. We want to represent him well, too. His legacy in the military is amazing. But the work he has done since leaving service is unmatched. It extends far beyond MTSU and Tennessee.
Is there anything else you want to say about the general?
We keep several lists of “Huberisms.” I have some here on my wall that other commands have made. One in particular was written about him right before 9/11. It is a list of “Huber’s Rules,” and at the bottom it says, “Do the right thing for the right reason.” These were his life rules from decades ago, yet could have been written yesterday as they are things he tells us and demonstrates daily.
LTG(R) Keith Huber dossier
Career
Retired U.S. Army three-star general; 38 years, Special Forces (Green Berets), 14 of those years as a general officer; 5½ years of combat duty; overseas tours in Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Haiti, Honduras, Kosovo, and Afghanistan; MTSU’s senior advisor for veterans and leadership initiatives since 2015
Education
U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, B.S., 1975; Golden Gate University, Master of Public Administration, 1984
Military family connections
Grandfather served in World War I and father in World War II
RELATED ARTICLE: Q&A with LTG(R) Keith Huber about Daniels Center Director Hilary Miller
