Waldron Career Conversation with Jeanne Sparrow ’91, ’15 MSC: Speaker, Consultant, and TV/Radio Personality
Jeanne Sparrow graduated from Weinberg College in 1991 with a major in psychology. After graduating from Northwestern again in 2015 with a Masters in Communication, she became a member of the MSC faculty in the School of Communication and is currently a speaker, consultant, and 3-time Emmy-winning television and radio personality.
We talk about the experiences at Northwestern that started her career in radio, how her arts and science background plays out in her work today, and the similarities & differences between her experience in radio on 9/11 and now during the current global health crisis.
Audio Transcription:
Cassie Petoskey:
Welcome to the Weinberg in the World Podcast, where we bring you stories of interdisciplinary thinking for today's complex world. This episode is an alumni career chat, brought to you by the Walden Student Alumni Connections Program. Today we're speaking with Jeanne Sparrow ’91, ’15 MSC, who graduated from Weinberg College in 1991, with a major in psychology.
After graduating from Northwestern again, in 2015, with a master's in communication, she became a member of the MSC faculty in the School of Communication, and is currently a speaker, consultant, and three-time Emmy winning television and radio personality. Jeanne, thank you so much for being here with us today.
Jeanne Sparrow:
Well, you're welcome, Cassie. This is awesome. Always good to talk to my Wildcat family.
Cassie Petoskey:
Yes, and we're so excited to hear more about what you're up to these days. But before jumping into that, I'd love to start with your experience while on campus at Northwestern, and if you can tell us a little bit more about why you picked your major, and some of the impactful classes that you took while on campus?
Jeanne Sparrow:
Oh, wow, okay. So, you may have to prompt me for some of that stuff again. Northwestern experience. Oh, by the way, are you using the video from this?
Cassie Petoskey :
Northwestern shirt! No, we're not, but this is the spirit.
Jeanne Sparrow:
I had to put my Northwestern shirt on. I have a wardrobe of them. My time at Northwestern was one of the first big growing experiences of my life. I'm originally from Louisiana, coming this far away to school, even though I had family here, I was on my own, as much as one can be on one's own when you're an undergrad living on campus. But, it opened me up to a whole new world, and the idea that there were possibilities I hadn't even considered yet.
I ended up choosing psychology as my major. It was my minor, originally. I was in the School of Speech, which is now the School of Communications. A bunch of circumstances happened that led me to switching my major and applying to the College of Arts and Sciences, and making psychology my major.
I've always been fascinated by how people think, how I think, how our feelings and emotions, and experiences impact what we do, what choices we make, even subconsciously and unconsciously. I just thought it would be a good way to understand life and whatever it is that I decided to do next. I thought I was going to go to law school, and I thought that would be a good way to understand people, but that never happened, and I also didn't go to grad school until many years later, but my degree still ended up serving me well.
Cassie Petoskey:
Psychology was what you ended up with in the Arts and Sciences. How did this major influence your then career path?
Jeanne Sparrow:
It was still about discovery. I was working at WNUR, and I had just about finished all of my coursework for psychology. So I had a bunch of electives left. And I was going into my senior year. I was thinking at that point, law school wasn't it for me, and I thought I was going to be a therapist.
Our faculty was so amazing and really interested in what it was we really wanted to do, and my advisor was particularly direct, let's call it. He was asking me a bunch of questions and things, because I had been accepted to a departmental honors program, which was a research program based on some work I had done in my junior year. And he asked me, "Do you really want to do that?"
And I was like, "Yeah, because I want to graduate with honors. My mom would be really happy." He said, "I didn't ask you what your mama wanted. I asked you what you wanted." He said, "Because I sense that you're conflicted about it."
And this is the beauty, I think, of being in the College of Arts and Sciences, in the psych department in particular, was I had had the same advisor my whole time. Even though we only met a couple times a year and I took one class from him, which was particularly impactful to me, I realized that the whole point of my education was for me to learn something. But also, more importantly, to learn about myself and what I wanted, and what I was doing and everything. So he encouraged me to basically, even though it wasn't called that then, to take a gap year.
He was like, "Go work. You've been at the radio station on campus. There's got to be something you can do with that, or you can just go and get a job and see what it's like to be out in the world or what have you. But don't get on this hamster wheel of going to grad school and being a therapist, because when you're achievement-oriented, you're going to be encouraged to do things like departmental honors, but is that really what you want? Is this the track that you want to go on? Because once you start that, it doesn't stop."
That real life advice and that permission to be me, to explore what I wanted, was the freedom that I needed, and that theme has resonated throughout my career. "Is this what I really want right now? What is it that I do want?" Even if the answer is, "I don't know," that's an answer.
Cassie Petoskey:
And that helps you make the next decision. Jeanne, I love your stories about being on campus and the things that really made an impact on you.
Can you tell us more about your experience in radio while you were on campus? I know typically if you go into a radio, television, or film career, you're coming out of communication. You came out of psychology, so what were some of the things that drew you to that path from Arts and Sciences?
Jeanne Sparrow:
Well, it was always something fun for me to do. I actually started in radio when I was in high school in Louisiana. There was a local radio station in my small town that always had high school and college students on staff, because it was a great way to have part-timers that were interested and could learn while working, and so that's how I got an initial interest in radio.
When I got on campus and realized there was a radio station, the great thing about NUR that I think is still true now, is that anybody can be part of it. You don't have to be RTBF, you don't have to be in communications. You can just be a part of the staff and participate. So, at the time, I was into jazz. I still am. I found it interesting, there was a whole jazz program from, I don't know, six in the morning till noon, or something like that. By the time I got to my sophomore year, I was one of the producers of the jazz programming with another guy. We did staffing, field shifts, and managed our portion of the day, which was interesting.
Cassie Petoskey:
That's a lot of responsibility, it seems like.
Jeanne Sparrow:
Yeah, we screwed it up a lot. But that's how you learn. That's what college radio is for. It was fun and expressive and a learning experience. To be able to do that in concert with everything else, it was just an extracurricular activity to me, because I didn't know what people did for a living in radio. I didn't think it was a career, it was a hobby. I liked music and I liked talking, and it was a good place to do both, and you got to play with cool equipment.
So I just kind of rolled with it. But it really wasn't until I decided to take a year off that it became a career possibility. And it was only because it was brought to my attention that it could be a career when I went to career services, and they're looking at the little resume that my friend helped me put together, and they're like, "Mm, you've been at NUR for four years running a show. Do you ever think about doing radio?" And I was like, "Nope. Actually hadn't thought of it."
And so again, it's the resources that we have, it's the encouragement and the inquiry, it's the fact that people ask questions, and so often you don't get that in life. We're moving so fast, and there are these expectations, and people think they should be on some sort of career track. And I'm so glad that I let it just be, that it was this organic sort of thing I took, I followed an interest that I had, I had advisors that were interested in me following my interests, and it just kind of took care of itself. I took Italian, I was like, "Well, the Spanish class was full. I don't need that anyway. What sounds cool? Okay, I'll try Italian."
And I took philosophy. In fact, one of my TAs tried to get me to add philosophy as a double major," because I would just wreck the conversations with my psych mind. I would go, Well yeah, because Professor so and so said da that this is how our brain works. And of course you would feel that way if you were going through that. Of course we're all nihilists."
Cassie Petoskey:
Oh my god. So you did so many different things.
Jeanne Sparrow:
Yeah, because it was fun and I had the option to. I took geography, I took... What was it called? The nickname of it was Rocks for Jocks. I don't know if that still exists. But literally it was a class on Wednesday nights with this cool prof, that I can't even remember his name, and because Wednesday night was the night you could go out on campus, he didn't care if you came in with a beer or what have you.
And he showed pictures from his summer, I don't know, research trips, that he took pictures of rocks. But it was cool because you got to understand what the earth is made of and what these minerals actually do. And you could see it in real life, because he had this huge slideshow. What's the big room at Harris? Harris 102, Harris 104? Whatever that big room that's in Harris.
Cassie Petoskey:
108?
Jeanne Sparrow:
- You just went in there, you sat. And the tests were hard. You only had two. And he had little study guides and stuff along the way so you could keep track of stuff. But really what it was, was absorbing information. I took a religion class, a class about modern Catholic theology, because I grew up Catholic in southwest Louisiana. And I was just kind of like, "This looks interesting."
And so the guy who taught it was just like, "Wait, okay, you're black, you're Catholic, you're from southwest Louisiana, we got to hear your experience of this and how this relates to what we're talking about in class." And I was just like, "It's normal because that's how I grew up. I don't know any different." But it put things in context. It put my experience in a larger global context, because he talked about what happened in Mexico, and how the Holy See looked at different ways that different communities were adapting their Catholicism to fit the cultural norms. And I was like, "I didn't even know they saw us. Okay. All right, Pope."
Cassie Petoskey:
I love that you did so many different classes and that you followed what you enjoyed, and that that's how your career really started in something that you didn't even know could be a path, which I feel like, so many students in the Weinberg College right now have a certain idea of what the career paths are, but they don't necessarily know all of the different options. So a lot of students are probably in your shoes of like, "Oh, the thing that I enjoy doing could be a career path?" I love that you really ran with that, and you've been so entrepreneurial in your career. You've done a ton of different things. But I'd love to hear more about what you're doing in your current work in 60 seconds or less.
Jeanne Sparrow:
So right now I am a speaker consultant, still a radio and television personality. And in my consultancy work and speaking work, I help people find more success through the way that they talk about themselves, express their value, and tell their stories or their organizations' stories. Because I work with both individuals and organizations, and it's really about being better and doing more by how you communicate.
Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, that's really interesting. So you can do that in a number of different ways. And I'm curious how you feel, like your arts and science background, I know you've talked through a lot of the classes that you took and some of the experiences you had on campus, how is that playing out in your day to day now with the global health crisis that we're in the middle of right now? Your work's changing rapidly from what you thought the year was going to be to what it is now.
Jeanne Sparrow:
Yes it has. And it still remains to be seen what it's going to be. I think that the same thing that helped me coming out of Northwestern and into my radio career, and being able to respond to things, to take in information quickly, compare it to what I know, see the novelty or the similarities, and create some sort of pattern, and then a response to it, is what is helping me now. I think that an arts and sciences background makes you nimble if you do it right. It makes you think about things and see connections between all the things that you know. To see the patterns, to see the connections, to see how the world makes sense.
One of the things that one of my bosses always said to me that I thought that was a really high compliment coming from him, but I didn't realize was special, he said, "You know? You open a mic and you can just talk about anything." He was like, "What did they teach you up at Northwestern?" I was like, "How to be curious." I read things. And even if I don't read things all the way through, because that's a problem, I scan a lot, and especially nowadays with the wealth of information that comes at you, you pick and choose what you're doing, you discern the sources that you have.
And then when somebody comes to you with, as one of my friends recently did, "Look, I want to do this thing because I want to replace this lost income. I think you can help me here." And then you go, "Okay," and you use the same sense of discovery that I did in my research, in my psych classes, in my major, that I did when I just wanted to know about rocks or religion or Italian. And then you put a rigor to it, because you understand the scientific method. And even though that doesn't come out verbatim, you test, and you question, and you retest, and you ask, and you try, and then you go, "This worked and this didn't work." But now what I know is, I can do this, and I can turn this into a process that is valuable to somebody, and hopefully a product that I can turn into an offering that solves problems for other people.
Cassie Petoskey:
I love that. Yeah, absolutely. Test, question, retest, that mindset to adapt, which is ever so important now with this changing world we're living in. And so speaking of change, I know you spoke with the Walden Student Alumni Connections Program career summit this past fall. You had a great inspiring keynote address. And you shared a story about being in radio during 9/11, which was another big time of change in our country, a lot of uncertainty, and I've heard people in conversations compare what's going on now to some of the aftermath of that world event. And I'm curious from your experience what you're finding similar, different, and how this has been going in your world?
Jeanne Sparrow:
I just had this conversation the other day, and it comes up with regularity for those of us who were working and living during that time. There are some very serious similarities, and even more complicating outcomes. One of the things that I find most of us are experiencing, that we're dealing with it then as young adults, because I was 31 when 9/11 happened. And at least then we had a sense of community that we could hug and touch and connect with that we do not have now.
And it is a stark difference that I can't get around, even though I do see how 9/11 impacted us and the very literal fallout of the cleanup and the things that have happened since then, for New Yorkers in particular, and the way that our lives have changed, the way it changes how we travel, the way we look at people who are not from here, at least I should say, the way some people look at that, the way we even view immigration now. 9/11 was definitely a turning point in American society, and COVID 19, coronavirus, is having as much, and I think exponentially greater impact on what our culture looks like, what it will look like, what it becomes from here, how it is challenging us in some very different ways.
I think that a lot of the things that we are doing to adapt now will continue in some different ways that we have perhaps been resisting before. And I'm curious what it changes into. I do think that this time has made us, just like then, understand what's truly important to us individually and collectively as a nation, and as different cultures within this nation. I think that it has tested our adaptability to different circumstances. And we've come up with some amazing solutions, and there have been solutions that have been right in front of us the whole time that we have adapted, and that they have helped the companies that created these solutions have adapted to our needs, like Zoom, for instance.
And the way that our supply chain works even, in this country, especially when you think about the delivery part of it, the logistics part of it, how things get from point A to point B, in the macro and the micro, how we market ourselves. Marketing is going to be fundamentally different, I think. The principles will still be the same. How it's activated, how it's enacted, I think, is going to be different. I think.
Hospitality will be markedly different. And I don't even know how that changes, you know what I'm saying? Because the landscape, because of how the industry has traditionally run on really slim margins, and who survives and/or is able to come back, and what happens to the customers, and how we view our experiences. And I'm sure I'm just scratching the surface. I can't even think, there's not an industry. I can't think of, radio and television, broadcasting. I'm doing my radio show from home. And it sounds almost exactly like I'm in the studio. You don't think that's going to change things?
Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, that's a great point.
Jeanne Sparrow:
You know?
Cassie Petoskey:
And we don't know. We don't know what that will look like, and it'll be interesting to see how we come out of this. But thinking about the now, something that you said really stuck with me, is the fact that we can't hug and we can't come together as a community during a crisis, which makes this so that much harder. And we have students who are studying remotely for the spring quarter who aren't able to have those campus experiences. What advice do you have for students to make the most of this? And also just general advice you have for students, whether they're on campus or off. What would you like to share with the current Weinberg College students?
Jeanne Sparrow:
I have a couple of different perspective on that, just because I'm also faculty in the School of Communication, adjunct faculty in the School of Communications. And even though I haven't taught a course yet remotely as part of this particular crisis, I have been privy to and witnessed some of what has happened and how the program that I teach in has morphed. And we are making it work. And I think that as students, it's about doing the best you can in the situation you've got, instead of lamenting that you aren't on campus, that you're missing something, because you can still acknowledge that. At the same time you take the tack of, this is something new. This is an experience that I hadn't expected. So what is there to learn from the actual experience? Not just the subject matter that's there, but what is it about this environment that can teach me something? And just observe. No more than that because you don't have to make meaning of everything in the moment.
And I think a lot of times we feel pressed to do that. And I don't know that it's necessary, because perspective is everything. We're not going to know what this really means until it's all done, and then some. Just like people are still studying what happened from 9/11.
The other piece of it I think, is to go easy on yourselves. I think that everybody thinks just because we're stuck at home, we should be writing the next great American novel, that we should be creating something new. And yeah, there are going to be people who do that. It doesn't have to be you. It's okay to sit back and say, "I don't feel like it. I got to deal with my stress, I've got to deal with my anxiety. I can't learn like this." It has taken me three weeks of trying to shift because my cancellations of my work, of my clients, or postponements as many of them called it, started about a week before shelter in place in Chicago happened.
And I kicked it into overdrive trying to find new streams of income, trying to stay busy. "Oh, I'm going to work on this, I'm going to work on that, I'm going to work on this." And I was driving myself bananas. And now I'm finally getting to the point where I'm pushing things off my plate because I need space. I need space for my brain to breathe this in, and I need to give myself permission to not be the most productive, because I can't, I'm not that kind of creative person. I got to be happy to be creative, and I'm not happy right now.
I'm happy in moments, and when I'm happy in those moments I can create. But in those moments when I'm not happy, and I'm pushing myself, and I'm trying to do things, I feel like I'm at a treadmill. And the worst kind of treadmill, not the kind that you fall down, you bust your head on the bottom of it, and you just lay there like a bad viral YouTube video going, "How did I end up here?" Because I tripped, or something like that. No, that's not the way to experience this thing, in my opinion.
And if you're one of those people that's rocking it out, God bless, but don't feel like you have to do that to come out of this productive. Explore it, let it happen. That's what the arts and sciences are here for. We are here to observe, to test, to question, and to respond, and you got to have space to do all those things.
Cassie Petoskey:
Absolutely. Such a great insight to end on. And really, Jeanne, you've shared so many great stories about your personal experiences on campus and after and in your career. So many great insights, and I really appreciate you being so authentic with us today. That it is tough. It's tough for you, it's tough for me, it's tough for our students. And we're going to get through this, and I love your message. So Jeanne, thank you so much for being here with us today.
Jeanne Sparrow:
Thank you. Well, fearless authenticity is my thing.
Cassie Petoskey:
I love it. I love it. It's so true. You're so true to your brand, and it's so much fun to chat with you, Jeanne.
Jeanne Sparrow :
Always lovely to chat with you, Cassie. To all my Weinberg friends, hang in there. You are the future, and I can't wait to see what you do.
Cassie Petoskey:
For more information about Weinberg College and this podcast, please visit weinberg.northwestern.edu and search for Waldron. Also, we'd love to hear your feedback. Please email us at waldronnorthwestern.edu with your thoughts on today's program. Thank you again for tuning into this episode of Weinberg in the World.