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Everyone who comes in contact with her is inspired.

Sandra maguire has had tremendous impact literally on thousands and thousands of students.

Yes, at LSU, but across the country, she's able to see the promise and value in students and what they can accomplish, despite we may not see it in ourselves.

She's able to see it.

Sandra Yancey McGuire was born the second oldest of four on December 30th, 1949.

However, the foundation for her life was laid well before then.

Sandra's ancestors triumphed over decades of barriers, beginning with her paternal grandmother, Effie Gordon Yancey, the daughter of freed slave Isaac Gordon.

Effie was the first in the family to attend college and taught in Greensburg, Louisiana.

That was extraordinary for anyone, not even considering that she was the daughter of a freed slave.

The fact that her all of her children went to college really cemented the emphasis on education.

And and I can see the influence of that long legacy in my mother, myself and my children.

Sandra's father, Robert, was a high school science and agriculture teacher, and her mother, DeLuise taught elementary school.

Sandra absorbed her parent's love of learning.

She graduated from Glen Oaks High School early at the age of 16.

She entered Southern University where she graduated magna cum laude.

It was during her time in Southern's chemistry program that she met Steven McGuire.

Their chemistry soon spilled beyond the classroom, leading to a successful marriage that has lasted more than 50 years.

My mom and my dad, at their core, are insatiably curious.

People with a super high standard of execution.

So if you put those two things together, you end up with people who are constantly learning and constantly educating themselves.

And that was the vibe in our household.

Sandra went on to earn a master's degree from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in chemical education from the University of Tennessee.

She began her teaching career at Cornell, where she received the coveted Clark Distinguished Teaching Award.

In 1999, Sandra moved back to her home state and joined LSU, where she became the director of the Center for Academic Success.

So the fact that Sandra McGuire is a woman leader on the faculty, also a woman of color is quite exceptional.

What a tremendous role model she's provided for so many people here at LSU.

Over the years, Sandra began to understand critical deficits in the education system.

She wanted to see more students succeed, particularly in the sciences.

The learning strategies she has pioneered have earned her countless awards, including the 2017 American Chemical Society Award, for encouraging disadvantaged students to pursue careers in the chemical sciences.

It's impossible to measure how many students she has mentored to successful careers.

Sandra believes that a human being can learn anything at any level, and she also believes that there are methodologies to learning that you can help people to learn.

You can put certain tools into their hands.

It transforms people's lives.

I've seen so many students who, before they came to Dr. McGuire, were, you know, failing out of college.

I know one person in particular who before he went to Dr. McGuire, he was the university was threatening to kick him out because he was doing so bad.

But when he got connected with Dr. McGuire, he was making 4.0 and was able to graduate from college.

She thinks about how teaching is effective and is able to communicate that to both other teachers and to students.

Sandra has two daughters, Dr. Carla McGuire Davis, a department chair at Baylor College of Medicine, and Dr. Stephanie McGuire, an author and mezzo soprano in Berlin, Germany.

She is also the proud grandmother of Joshua Ruth Daniel and Joseph Davis.

Hi.

Today, we're being joined by Dr. Sandra Yancey McGuire.

She's a 2022 Louisiana legend and professor emerita of chemistry and director emerita of the Center for Academic Success at Louisiana State University.

So delighted to have you here.

Dr. Sandra McGuire It's awesome to be in your home, so thank you for having us.

Oh, well, thank you so much.

I'm going to really enjoy this.

I absolutely am.

I've been a long time fan of yours years before I even met you.

So this is an honor for me to be here doing this for you today or doing this with you, I should say.

Well, I've admired your work over the years, so it's definitely an honor for me.

I know we're having a mutual moment, you mutual admiration moment.

But to get a job interview, though, tell us about your childhood.

Oh, I grew up in North Baton Rouge in Scotland.

Bill and I had a wonderful childhood.

I'm the second oldest of four siblings, and I have a brother who's a year and a half older than I am.

And we had a very happy childhood.

We did things like going to the park, spending afternoons at our grandparents house, playing volleyball and kickball, all those kinds of things.

My dad was a high school agriculture and science teacher and my mom was an elementary school teacher, although she stayed home with us kids and she subbed occasionally.

But we had a marvelous childhood, even though there were a lot of things that we couldn't do in Baton Rouge because it was deeply segregated at the time.

But we felt the love and support of our community, and I just had a wonderful upbringing.

I went to Southern University Laboratory School starting in first grade, and that did things like the band and it was it was just wonderful, just wonderful.

And, you know, we share that in common.

Scotland and Scotland was a wonderful community, so we're excited to highlight Scotland today as well.

But you come from a long line of family members who've made some extraordinary strides in education was always at the forefront of everything you all did in the Yancey family for sure.

Hallmarks in education in Baton Rouge.

But what were some of the lessons that were passed on to you that you treasure the most from your parents and even your other family members?

Oh, thanks for that question.

Yes, In our family, education really was a big deal.

We learned that education was a tool that would allow you to reach heights, that you would not be able to reach if you didn't have a level of education.

And of course, we knew that it wasn't going to open up all doors because there were still so many areas that were not available to African-Americans, no matter how much education you got.

But we knew that having an education would give us many more tools.

And so we learned to value education and to respect the fact that we were given a privilege that so many of our ancestors didn't have because it was illegal for blacks to become educated and so we learned not to take education lightly, to take it very seriously and recognize that it was a privilege that so many people, even during my generation, didn't have the opportunity for a high quality education, was not available to so many students.

And even today, unfortunately, so many students, the quality of education that's available to them has more to do with their zip code than with their potential for becoming very excellent students and so we really treasured that.

That was the lesson we learned.

And the other thing that we learned was that education was a way for you to improve your own condition.

But education was a tool that would be used to better the community.

And so they were in professions like teaching things that they could give back when they got educated, they wanted to educate others.

And that spirit is actually translated to my generation.

There are 13 of us in my generation, and there are physicians, they are scientists, they are scientist educators like myself.

We are pre-college educators.

My sister was an academic advisor.

She was the National Economic Advisor of the Year.

She worked with so many students at LSU.

So this idea that you become educated so that you can give back was a lesson that we learned also.

Indeed.

So, you know, Dr. McGuire, I'm going to skip around a bit, but you earned a master's degree from Cornell University.

So that that in and of itself says, hey, you know, we take we're taking education seriously.

And then you went on to get your Ph.D. in chemical education from the University of Tennessee, and then you begin your teaching career at Cornell.

Cornell, rather, where you received the coveted Clark Distinguished Teaching Award.

So when you say you all took education very seriously, you took it to another level?

I would say so.

So what are the ingredients that you think that really created that role for this success that you received?

Yes.

And I'll go back and I'll tell you why we took education so seriously.

We could see the generation before us.

There were nine and most of them had master's degrees from places like Iowa State, Michigan State, Kansas State, because LSU was not integrated at the time.

Right.

And rather than integrate LSU, the state of Louisiana decided to pay other states to educate black students at the graduate level.

So they went to some of the finest institutions.

So those of us in my generation had them as an example.

Now, in terms of my success as an educator, I think that it really started when I was a student at Southern University and I'd never taken chemistry because I, I was going to take chemistry my senior year in high school, but then I skipped my senior year in high school.

So I don't have a high school diploma for a Ph.D., but no high school diploma.

Wow.

A little known fact about Dr. McGuire.

Okay.

And so when I went to Southern, I had not had any chemistry, but I was in honors chemistry.

And I did well because we had faculty who really cared about our success.

And they demonstrated that it wasn't about what you brought to the institution.

Didn't matter to them that I'd never seen chemistry, but they were able to nurture us and give us the skills and strategies we need to excel.

And I think those are the things that I have taken with me, that as long as students know that you care about their success and that you know that they can excel, you can give them that confidence that they need in order to really embrace learning.

And if you give them specific learning strategies, then they will excel.

And I think that's been the key for me.

You know, that really leads me to my next question.

When did you realize that you had the gift of translating these principles of cognitive science education and social psychology research for not only students but for college faculty as well.

So, you know, you're not just helping students, but you also designed this to help faculty.

Yes.

And that actually came fairly late, I would say, in my career, starting maybe 20 years ago.

But then it happened when I got to LSU, when we moved to Louisiana back to Baton Rouge in 1999, I became director of the Learning Center at LSU, the Center for Academic Success.

And before that I really knew very little about this.

But when I became director of that center, I met a wonderful learning strategist, Sarah Bayard, who really introduced me to the idea that you could have students failing courses one week and then two or three weeks later they're making A's and B's if we give them strategies for success.

And when I learned that that was possible, I started reading everything I could get my hands on and I came across the construct of metacognition as a way to help students understand what their role in the learning process was.

And so I started using this and the students were successful.

And then I learned that I could I had a way to help not just chemistry professors, but physics professors, engineering professors, mathematics professors have a way that they could ensure that their students could master principles such as nuclear filmic substitution reactions or Maxwell's equations or fluid dynamics or multivariable calculus, high level stem training here that we're talking about very high level.

And these are the concepts that really give a lot of students difficulty and it can derail their progress toward the career that they are really they've been many of them have been wanting to pursue these careers as either a physician or an engineer since elementary, middle school.

And they get to these concepts and it throws them off their game.

But I knew that I could help faculty, let students know what they needed to do in order to master those subjects.

And when they did, it really made a big difference.

And I knew that it was a gift when I had all of these STEM faculty members, because initially I didn't know if they were going to receive this information.

You know, kindly, I should say.

Sure.

But they went to the Arctic about it.

And so they started implementing the strategies.

They were getting the same kind of results.

And most recently, I learned this was just a month ago that there was a culinary professor, culinary arts professor who had been teaching for decades.

I did a workshop at that institution and I was told that he was really so enthusiastic and he said he'd learned things that he hadn't learned before and he couldn't wait to try them with his students.

And when that happened, I knew that this was a gift.

And now I'm kind of like a reformed alcoholic.

I'll say, you know, I have the answer.

And so I love to to share these principles.

Yeah.

Especially that you can translate them across many different disciplines.

So we're not just talking about STEM.

I mean, you went over into the culinary arts, which I know some will argue there's some chemistry involved in, some certainly in baking, but not so much in cooking.

It's just kind of a taste thing.

But you're able to take that and really help everyone.

I'm learning so much here.

I'm thinking, what are we going to do after we finish this?

But what's what's the achievement that you most proud of, of all the things that you've done?

Oh, wow.

I have just had such a blessed life and I have had so many, and I guess I'd have to break that question into two areas.

One would be personal achievements and then the other would be professional and I would say personally, the family that Steve and I have been able to build, we have two daughters.

Our older daughter is Section chief of Pediatric Allergy Immunology and Retro Virology at Baylor College of Medicine, and our younger daughter is my coauthor on the book and she's an opera singer in Berlin, Germany.

And thinking about the way education permeates the family.

When I look at the generation of our kids, they have picked up the mantle and are doing very well.

And two of those students hold PhDs from the University of Oxford, one as a Rhodes Scholar from Harvard, and our daughter as a marshall scholar from MIT.

And and our grandchildren are also pursuing disciplines that will be of service to the community as well as one is interested in aerospace engineering.

She just got enrolled I'm saying just got admitted to graduate schools, a couple of graduate schools.

And yeah, so we've just been really, really blessed.

So that's personally, professionally, I think it's been my ability to be active in so many different communities and get accepted and recognition and all of those, for example, the chemistry community, the science faculty community.

I'm a fellow of the American Chemical Society, elected fellow, and also the American Association for the Advancement of Science, but not only the science community, but the learning Center community, where I'm a fellow of the Council of Learning Assistance and Developmental Education Associations.

And then there's the education community, and then there's the administration community since I was an administrator.

And so to be accepted and recognized by all of those communities and have those people talking to each other, that I think is one of my biggest accomplishments.

And actually just last week I learned that I was named one of the top 100 learning influencers.

Wow.

I edu flow.

Yes, I was shocked.

But edu flow and regulations.

Yes there in Denmark.

And some of the people on the list were people I'd learned about in school or Montessori.

Maria montessori was one of the people on the list.

Robert Garnier Vygotsky And little did I ever think when I was in school learning about these folks or when I was dropping our kids off and picking them up from Montessori school, that I would be on a list that had those.

And so that I think is my biggest professional accomplishment that I'm most proud of that is and still accomplishing.

You know, you said this was last week, so things are still happening as recently as last week.

So congratulations for that.

You know, let's talk a bit about your time at Southern, your time at Southern.

You mentioned it earlier.

You were there from kindergarten all the way through college.

You got your first degree.

So for one little detour, I went to Southern Lab in 10th grade and I integrated Glenoaks High School and I was glenoaks for my junior year.

And then I skipped my senior year and I started saw that I started as a university.

Yeah.

It was at the university that you met Dr. Stephen Maguire.

It was.

And I am so excited because I'm excited every time I think of the two of you, because I've known the two of you for a long time.

But you go back to the actual date that you met him, the day, the week, the modern, almost the time when you met him and you tell that story.

So tell us a bit about that and your life with Dr. Maguire.

Okay.

Yes, it's October 13th, 1966, at an Honors College party that one of our instructors had had given.

And I met him at that party.

And there was kind of an instant attraction.

And we started dating.

And we've just been together now for over 55 years.

We've been married for it'll be 52 years this August.

And it's interesting, I tell people, and it's true, he's still the only person I've ever met in my whole life who who had all of the characteristics I wanted in a husband that I had sat down and written out when I was about 13, 14 years old, 13 or 14 years.

You knew that early?

I did.

I knew I wanted somebody tall.

I was tall, and I wanted to be able to wear heels and not be taller than they are.

I wanted somebody who was studying science because I figured that that meant that you were serious about education.

He was a physics major.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so it's like, you ought to bottle that and try to sell and teach that as well.

I would just have to say about, you know, what it's like to be together for 55 years and married for 52, what that looks like.

And then to even share this award with Dr. McGuire, the fact that you're both 20, 22 Louisiana legends, that was so special for so many people in the audience to experience that with you.

And that was a first for Lvb that we were honoring a married couple.

Yeah, and that was really so special for us because it really kind of validated our whole life's work, our bodies of work that complement each other.

Yes.

But of course are in different areas.

And so that was really phenomenal.

Yes.

And now it's been a joy.

I think that the key to our success, marital success, is it's not just the two of us.

There is also God.

It starts with God and so with the three of us, we've been able to move forward and every couple has seen ups and downs, but we've always been committed to each other.

And whenever we were at a rough spot, we just knew that our decision was to stay together and enjoy each other.

And and they didn't last long because we were just able to move forward.

And I think that's one of the keys to our success.

And we have shared values.

We both value family life, we both value education, we both value excellence.

And so I think that's been a big part of it.

And we like to have fun.

We have fun together.

We'll do things like, you know, go to the movies, simple things, not expensive.

We don't have expensive tastes, but going to movies, going out to dinner, going to Lake Pontchartrain where he will fish.

And I don't fish.

I don't have the patience for fishing.

The native New Orleanian.

Yes, exactly.

But I will walk around when he's fishing and I've gotten 17,000 steps in one day while he's been fishing.

Absolutely.

We're going from west in to other parts of the river walk.

Yes, that's a beautiful walk in New Orleans.

So, Dr. McGuire, what is your guiding philosophy?

What guides you in the work that you do?

Well, I think that my guiding philosophy is really rooted in my faith, and that has to do with service to others.

I think that we're all put on this planet to be of service to our fellow human beings.

And so that's been a large part.

Another guiding principle that is has been directly handed down by my grandmother, by our parents, aunts and uncles, is that you are as good as anyone else.

You're not any better than anyone else, but you are as good as anyone else.

And that was really, really an important philosophy for me to have growing up in an environment where African-Americans were always given the message that you are less than you're not going to be able to achieve.

And so I think that was really, really important.

And also the idea that you're going to come across stumbling blocks and I tell students all the time that stumbling blocks and stepping stones can look identical and you get to determine what role they're going to play in your life.

And so recognizing that things that appeared to be obstacles were not necessarily obstacles because you could turn them into something that was positive and that has served me well, I think, over the years with resilience and persistence and being able to constantly move forward.

So have you found anything to be surprising in your research or in your teachings or in your dealings with students and faculty?

Even I can tell you, yes.

I was shocked.

I was really shocked to find out when I got to LSU that it was possible for students who were failing a course.

One way to be making hazing.

BS A few weeks later, when I was at Cornell and for the first 30 years of my career, I actually thought that there were some students who had the ability to excel in disciplines like chemistry, math, philosophy, even to be great writers or great musicians and other people didn't have that ability.

And that's why we saw this difference in grades and different courses.

But then when I got to LSU and saw how Sarah Bayard was working with those students to turn things around, that really surprised me.

And because when I was at Cornell, if a student came in my office and said, Dr. McGuire, I really having trouble with this organic chemistry, I don't really understand aromatic substitutions and I'm not doing well in the course, but I want to be a neurosurgeon.

What should I do?

I would say, Well, let's talk about your backup career goals.

And I feel so bad about that.

And now I repent of that now because I just didn't know it was possible.

But then when I found out that it was possible and and now I talk to students about metacognition and see it was never about how smart students are.

It was always about the strategies that they were using.

So it was really a joy for me to learn that it's so easy to teach students these strategies.

And it's also been very gratifying that other faculty, when they learn this, they also accept the idea that it's not about how smart students are.

We have the power to teach them and give them the tools that they need to excel.

All about metacognition.

Yes, I love it.

I love it.

Dr. Sandra Yancey McGuire, thank you so much for this time that we spent together.

It has been an absolute pleasure.

We've learned so much and now we're going to go out and do better based on what we've learned from you.

So thank you for allowing us in your home today and we hope to see you again soon.

Oh, well, thank you so much.

I've had big fun doing it.

Thank you so much.

Robin Wright, for a copy of this program.

Call one 800 9737246 or go online to WW w dot lp b dawg.