00:04
Rachelle Keck
I chose the painting entitled Accumulation, 1938, by Egill Jacobsen. The emotion that it evoked in me, I did not know what it was about. The bold colors, the integration of the thick black lines, or perhaps they’re navy blue, there's a little bit of both. It just struck me.

00:28
Rachelle Keck
The title, Accumulation, I initially thought, was a commentary on our inclination as human beings to accumulate things, relationships, achievements, accolades, possessions. It was really a commentary on Nazi Germany. And I had no idea.

00:50
Rachelle Keck
And that's one of the beautiful things about art. It's very personal to not only the artist, but also to the viewer, and they may not see and feel the same things.

01:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen, and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark and the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who have made a significant mark in the US.

01:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today our guest is Rachelle Keck, an American president of a university with very strong Danish roots. Welcome, Rachelle.

01:34
Rachelle Keck
Thank you, Tina. Happy to be here.

01:36
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you for being here with us. I called you an American with very strong Danish roots. Is that the right way to describe you? Or do you even consider yourself Danish American or American Danish? Tell us about how you identify yourself in that way.

01:53
Rachelle Keck
Yes, yes, thank you. I would consider myself American. However, I have recently discovered, through Ancestry.com, that I am more Danish than anything else. So, certainly have strong Danish ties and am currently in the discovery phase of what that looks like. I have uncovered some ancestral roots in Sønderborg, in Aalborg, Copenhagen, and then of course the Schleswig-Holstein area that has of course changed hands over the years. So I am not sure what to consider myself.

02:29
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That's interesting, huh? A discovery process. Do you know how your ancestors ended up in the United States or is that not revealed yet?

02:39
Rachelle Keck
I'm still discovering some of that, but I do know a couple who came over during the mid- to late 1800s to escape from that Schleswig-Holstein area. The one man that I know who is my great, great, great, great grandfather, or however far back it is, he was born in Schleswig, but it was Denmark at the time, it was not Germany. I know that at least that branch of the family tree came over as a result of that conflict and the ensuing migration.

03:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How do you personally celebrate your Danishness? I hope I'm not making assumptions that you do celebrate it, but do you?

03:24
Rachelle Keck
Prior to taking this Ancestry.com test, I knew I had Scandinavian roots, but I did not know that they were specifically Danish. And so from a family tradition, it hasn't really been passed on, but I am learning so much as a result of my presidency at Grandview and all of the connections to not only Danish organizations, but also Danish history and people with Danish connections. So it's been quite the process. So fun, a fun journey.

04:01
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And for the listeners to know a little bit more about where you are at the time that we are talking, can you tell us where you are at the moment? I know you're in Iowa. Are you at home? Are you in the office in the university?

04:16
Rachelle Keck
Today I am at home, because every so often I work remotely in the summertime when our students are not on campus, our faculty are not on campus, and earlier today I had several meetings that were close to my home. Right now I'm in my home office, but normally I'm in my office on campus in Des Moines.

04:38
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
The state of Iowa is a state that I have not been to, I'm a little embarrassed to tell you now that I'm talking to you. I've been to many states in the 23 years I've lived here. What is this state like and why do you think so many Danes were attracted to it?

04:54
Rachelle Keck
So Iowa itself is certainly an agricultural state at its roots and at its core. But we also are a growing state in terms of not only population, but also business and industry. I actually live in Des Moines, which is the capital city for the state of Iowa, and also the largest and fastest growing city in the state of Iowa. It's also where the university is located.

05:20
Rachelle Keck
The climate, I would say, is probably a little milder, particularly in the summer, than Denmark. We were able to go over to Denmark last summer over the Fourth of July holiday to celebrate at the Rebild National Park. And it was much colder and rainier in Denmark than it was in Iowa at that time. So we certainly experience all four seasons here, sometimes all in one day. We can sometimes get below zero in the winter, and then we can sometimes get above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer.

05:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Your CV is really impressive. You are the president of Grandview University. You're the first female president to have this honor in the history of the university. How did you make it this far? Talk about your path to the presidency.

06:16
Rachelle Keck
Okay. Okay. I was actually born and raised here in the state of Iowa. I have lived in other states, but I was primarily raised and educated here in Iowa. I originally started out as an attorney, or a lawyer or a barrister, not sure what you call it in Denmark, and practiced law in the state of Iowa for nearly 20 years.

06:40
Rachelle Keck
Initially I was a prosecutor, and so kind of like a district attorney or prosecuting attorney from a criminal law perspective. And then I started my own practice and did a general legal practice for 20 years.

06:55
Rachelle Keck
I went to a German Lutheran college undergrad in Iowa by the name of Wartburg College. And the reason I mention Wartburg College is because there are actually three Lutheran private colleges in the state of Iowa. Grandview is one of them. We are Danish Lutheran. Wartburg is German Lutheran. And then there is a college called Luther College, and Luther is Norwegian. Lutheran.

07:22
Rachelle Keck
In any event, I went to Wartburg College and eventually was asked to serve on the board of trustees, which is their governing board for the college, and they had a transition where they needed to hire a new president in 2008. I was on the board at the time, was asked to sit on the presidential search committee. And at the time I had a law degree. I now have my PhD, my doctor of philosophy in education. But at the time I was a practicing attorney.

07:52
Rachelle Keck
We had a couple of candidates who had law degrees and they were in our top round of candidates. And it occurred to me that you could be a college president with a law degree. And I thought to myself, huh, I think I would like this job. And I think I would be good at this job. Now, prior to that time for almost a decade, I had been coming to campus quite regularly because I was very involved with the alumni board, eventually becoming their president. And so I knew what it felt like to be on a college campus.

08:26
Rachelle Keck
I had been in the presence of the college president often, knew what a college president did, and certainly learned more about that during that presidential search process. And so my dream to become a college president when I grew up was born in 2008 and then I stepped into that dream six years later.

08:47
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And out of curiosity, what are the abilities that a lawyer has, or a barrister has, that are suitable for a president of a university?

08:58
Rachelle Keck
Great question, Tina. I often talk about this and you will, if you pay attention, you will notice that more and more attorneys are taking over at colleges and universities because of the unique skill sets that we as lawyers tend to possess. Now, obviously, not every lawyer possesses those skill sets.

09:19
Rachelle Keck
I'll give you a couple of examples. Communication skills absolutely are critical, which is certainly at the top of the list when you are an attorney. One of the things that we are taught both in law school and that we put into practice when we are attorneys is, particularly trial attorneys, is to look at every issue or every problem from a 360-degree angle.

09:46
Rachelle Keck
So I'm approaching it, for example, from my client's perspective. If I'm going to court, I have to know, what is my opponent going to do? What is their perspective and how are they approaching it? It really teaches you to do that, to really just pause and let's figure out all of the potential, or at least the most likely potential objections to your position, and prepare for those objections accordingly using research and case law and statutory law as applicable.

10:20
Rachelle Keck
The third thing that I think attorneys are quite good at that transfers into a college presidency, is being able to effectively remove emotion from decision making when necessary.

10:36
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Isn't that impossible?

10:40
Rachelle Keck
Uh … you know, it's a skill. It's a skill that you certainly have to develop, but —

10:43
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, I am teasing.

10:45
Rachelle Keck
But if you — if you're cognizant of what are the emotions that are present surrounding this issue right now, and are they a hindrance or a barrier or causing problems in this particular case or with my client. And if so, can we identify what they are, honor them, right? Identify, honor, recognize, set them aside.

11:09
Rachelle Keck
And now let's look at the problem or the issue or the situation. And then, if necessary, we can bring the emotion back. And that's what we talk about when we say, the facts, just the facts, please, just the facts, not the emotions, just the facts, just the data, just the evidence.

11:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That takes skill, I think. Grandview College was founded in 1896, and the inspiration for it came from the Danish Lutheran Church, as you've mentioned. What can you tell us about the beginnings of Grandview?

11:43
Rachelle Keck
It's actually quite an amazing story. So we had a cluster of Danish Lutheran immigrants in the Des Moines community. And I'll tell you first and foremost why Grandview University, at the time it was Grandview College, why it was named Grandview.

12:01
Rachelle Keck
It's not particularly Danish in terms of its name, but what happened was, when this group of immigrants, Danish immigrants, wanted to start an academy, or actually a folk school initially, and it was really founded around the tenets and theology and ideology of N.S.F. Grundtvig.

12:22
Rachelle Keck
When they wanted to start that folk school, they needed a place to put the school. And there was a land developer in Des Moines, and he owned a company called the Grandview Land Development Company. And an agreement was reached between the developer and this group of Danish Lutherans.

12:43
Rachelle Keck
And the agreement was, if the Danes could sell 15 lots in this development, and it was a residential housing development, then the company would give the college this plot of land upon which to build the school. Now, the idea, I think, that the developer had was that we already have this built-in clientele of buyers among the Danes and surely they're all going to settle down in this development and build houses. And I'm golden in terms of selling these lots.

13:16
Rachelle Keck
It didn't quite work as smoothly as that. They did eventually meet the agreement, sell the 15 lots, and then poured the foundation for the original building. At the school, my office, the president's office, is situated in that building.

13:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What's it like there? What does it look like?

13:35
Rachelle Keck
It's a combination of original, quaint, traditional college setting, we also have some beautiful new buildings that complement and are spread throughout campus. Our campus is about 60 acres, and then we have another contiguous piece that's almost 20 acres. So we have almost 80 acres.

13:57
Rachelle Keck
And we have a bridge across a four lane highway that runs through Des Moines, and interestingly, the bridge was built by a Danish family by the last name Rasmussen, and they were — and Jensen. It was actually the Jensen and Rasmussen families, and they had to shut down the highway in the middle of the night and put this bridge in, across the highway that connects our two sides of our campus.

14:26
Rachelle Keck
And Kurt Rasmussen is one of our alumni and he sits on the board of trustees for Grandview and they're bridge builders and road builders.

14:37
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
To what extent does the university keep its connection to its Danish roots still to this day?

14:45
Rachelle Keck
Several ways. The easiest one, the most obvious one is our athletic team, we are known as the Vikings. Skål! So that's the most obvious outward. Our colors are red and white, just like the Danish flag. In front of my building, the original building on campus, we have both the American flag and the Danish flag flying at all times. Also at the lighted entrance to campus, we have the Iowa and the Danish flags flying there as you come into campus.

15:14
Rachelle Keck
So those are probably two of the most outward ways that we identify as Danish. We also house an extensive Danish archive in our library here on campus. And we work with a Danish American museum in Elkhorn, Iowa. And then there are some additional Danish American archives that are housed on the former campus of Dana College, which at one time was an operating college. And my understanding is, Dana College, they were the pious or the holy Danes, and we were the happy Danes at Grandview, and that's a Danish Lutheran thing, I guess.

15:56
Rachelle Keck
We also celebrate many traditions at Grandview that are tied to our Danish roots. And we have quite a few buildings on campus that have Danish names. For example, we have the Valhalla Room, which is an extension of our cafeteria. We have the Lykke Center, which is a gathering space in the chapel area of campus.

16:23
Rachelle Keck
In our chapel, we have the ship hanging from the ceiling. And another thing, our university seal is quite similar to the seal of Denmark, with the lions and the hearts and the colors, very similar. It was certainly modeled after the seal of Denmark.

16:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Have you had a chance to look a little at the archives? What would one find there, for instance?

16:48
Rachelle Keck
I have only had a brief glance, but I know it's quite an extensive accumulation of letters and diaries and newspaper articles and log books and record books and photographs. And we are actually in the process of trying to find some funding so that we can potentially organize things a little better and preserve things a little better, and also maybe collaborate with the former Dana College over in Nebraska, which is a contiguous state to Iowa, and potentially bring all of those records together in one place.

17:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Grandview University describes itself as a Gruntvigian institution. I'm not sure if that's how you say it in English. I'm usually saying it in Danish.

17:41
Rachelle Keck
Yes.

17:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you teach Gruntvig, what he stood for and his significance in Danish culture?

17:48
Rachelle Keck
He is certainly taught in some of our theology and religion courses, and his ideology is actually a part of our mission at Grandview University. We consider ourselves a school for life. And we talk about that with not only our students, but also faculty, staff, alumni, the community.

18:11
Rachelle Keck
What does it mean to be a school for life? And what does it mean to learn for your whole life in terms of the length of your life? But also about your whole life, not just the intellectual part of your life, but also your spiritual and your relational and your physical. And all of the facets of humanity. It's just so beautiful how he phrased it.

18:35
Rachelle Keck
And what I love most about it, because I am a first generation college student, which means that my parents are not college graduates. So I was the first in my family at my generation level to go to college.

18:49
Rachelle Keck
And what I love about what Gruntvig taught, is that an educated citizenry is important and it's important that all humans, all citizens have the opportunity to earn an education. Not just the wealthy elite males, which is what was the tradition at the time, 128 years ago when Grandview was founded.

19:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That's a difficult thing to establish in the United States with the system that you have. Education is very expensive here. Danish listeners are used to getting free education in Denmark, right?

19:31
Rachelle Keck
Yes. Yes.

19:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Can I just ask you how much is tuition at your university? Just to give our listeners an example.

19:40
Rachelle Keck
Now, the caveat is that less than 1% to 2% of our students will pay the actual price for tuition, but tuition is slightly over $30,000 a year. Most of our students don't pay anything close to that. And now, please also keep in mind that in the United States, while we don't have free college for everyone, we also have a couple of different levels of our system.

20:08
Rachelle Keck
So the community colleges, which are generally your first two years, those are very inexpensive. And they're generally more designed for a trade or a short term, two years or less in terms of learning. But we also have the federal Pell Grant system in America. And so if you are financially needy, you qualify for aid that you do not have to pay back that you can use to pay for your college education.

20:39
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So there are ways to go around it.

20:41
Rachelle Keck
And that's how I paid for college, plus I had a full academic ride because of my grades.

20:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you have Danish language and literature, for instance, on the curriculum, or how does the curriculum reflect the university's Danish heritage?

20:58
Rachelle Keck
Yeah, we do not have Danish language. And part of that, Tina, is it's a little bit of a numbers game. We have about 2,000 students top to bottom. We have nine master's degree programs. Of course, those are generally professional programs. At the undergraduate level, we have fewer than 2,000. And so we do not offer Danish language.

21:24
Rachelle Keck
We certainly talk about our Danish history and some of what we call our core classes that are part of that foundational liberal arts, general education requirements, whether that's in history or in theology, it may get expanded upon. But certainly in the core curriculum, we talk about that. And we talk about what does it mean to pursue your vocation or vocations and to discover what those are throughout your life.

21:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
If I went there and started speaking Danish to the students, how many would react and understand what I was saying, you think?

22:04
Rachelle Keck
They may react and understand that you're speaking Danish, but I don't think you would find anyone who would understand Danish. Now we did just have a graduate from Aalborg. He just graduated in May, and he has now gone on to graduate school down in Missouri. And he played soccer for us. He certainly would have understood and certainly been able to converse with you.

22:28
Rachelle Keck
But we do not have Danish speaking faculty or people here on campus. Now, we do have organizations in the Des Moines area. We have a very active Danish Brotherhood and Danish Sisterhood organization in Des Moines. And certainly there are people in those groups who speak and understand Danish.

22:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I would be impressed if they just recognized that I speak Danish. You mentioned Rebildfesten. This summer I believe you'll be an American keynote speaker at the Rebild Fest, which is Denmark's Fourth of July celebration. What does this honor mean to you and what do you think it will be like celebrating the Fourth of July in Denmark?

23:13
Rachelle Keck
I'm absolutely very honored to be selected as the American keynote speaker for the Rebild American Independence Day celebration. I know what it's going to be like because I had the good fortune of attending the event last year, and certainly observed and took note of what the celebration is like and all about.

23:36
Rachelle Keck
So I'm quite prepared for what to expect. And I'm just excited to talk a little bit about what you and I are talking about today, but in more detail, the beginnings of Grandview University and how our Danish identity is still being lived out. And perhaps a little bit about the future.

23:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Is it a little bit odd to celebrate the 4th of July in Denmark?

24:03
Rachelle Keck
Yes. And it's interesting because when I tell people that Denmark holds or hosts the largest Fourth of July party in the world outside of the United States, people are just flabbergasted, and want to know, first of all, why and then what it's like. It's a lot of fun. It's certainly definitely a Danish flair and a Danish twist on Independence Day.

24:31
Rachelle Keck
We're missing maybe a few things that you would maybe have at an American type of Fourth of July party, like barbecue, bonfires. But we do have the fireworks. We do have fantastic food and music and fellowship, and really that's what celebrating Independence Day is about.

24:52
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Apart from celebrating America in Denmark when you're there, what do you like doing when you go visit?

25:00
Rachelle Keck
The best part about visiting Denmark is the people. We were so fortunate to traverse quite a bit of northern Denmark from Copenhagen to Aalborg and met so many people along the way last year. I'm absolutely excited to reconnect in person with many of those people. And looking forward this year to having the opportunity to go north to Skagen.

25:24
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You'll love it there. It's beautiful. Yeah. And there's a nice museum for Skagen painters that you have to visit. And my final question to you, Rachelle, is: how significant is Danish art for you? The National Gallery of Denmark, did you go there?

25:42
Rachelle Keck
We did. We had the unique opportunity to go behind the scenes into their restoration gallery. And so we got to see paintings and artwork being restored, which was quite a fascinating process and just fantastic works of art throughout.

26:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you so much, Rachelle, for being part of our podcast, the Danish Originals series. We very much appreciate you being with us.

26:09
Rachelle Keck
Thank you for having me. Thrilled to be here.

26:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Rachelle Keck chose Egill Jacobsen's Ophobning or Accumulation from 1938 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.