00;00;00;19 - 00;00;18;17
Liz Kay
Hello and welcome to the Providence College podcast. I'm your host, Liz K and I'm joined by producer Chris Judge of the Class of 2005. This week we had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Theodore Haig, a member of the class of 1970, a PC. Dr. Haig majored in education, played basketball and became the first president of the college, its Afro-American society.

00;00;18;26 - 00;00;37;26
Liz Kay
He went on to earn a doctorate in educational leadership as well as a JD and served as a teacher, principal superintendent, adjunct professor and many other roles both in the United States and in Qatar. But that's not all. Dr. Haig is also a prolific writer who has produced six mystery suspense novels since 2015. Dr. Haig, thank you so much for joining us this evening.

00;00;37;26 - 00;00;40;23
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And thank you for inviting me.

00;00;41;16 - 00;00;45;10
Liz Kay
So I wondered, could we start right from the beginning? What brought you to Providence?

00;00;45;26 - 00;01;12;00
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
It's a very interesting question. As a matter of fact, it's exciting and exciting to be, as ever, look back on it. Actually, I went to my first year college in a small school and and in New Hampshire coming out of New York City. And I was experiencing, quite frankly, just a lot of racial tension in New Hampshire. And I just just didn't want to tolerate any more.

00;01;12;01 - 00;01;39;25
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I had a Spanish professor actually went to Providence College and my Western civilization professor was a priest. As a matter of fact. And they introduced me, in fact, to Providence College from an academic standpoint. But I had already admired the school because Provost College had a wonderful relationship with New York City. Madison Square Garden. I mean, they were playing every year.

00;01;39;25 - 00;02;07;08
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
You had Jimmie Walker, Dexter Westbrook. You had some wonderful famous Kip Hayes, famous Lenny Wilkins. I could go on John Thompson, who went to Providence College. And I knew if I went to Providence College, I'd have an opportunity to play. If I if I got on a major team, I have opportunity to play at Madison Square Garden. But it was interesting because I had one Saturday morning, I was watching a basketball game between PC and I forget the name of the team they were planning.

00;02;07;27 - 00;02;27;28
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
But I was so excited. Can you imagine me standing in my dorm on a black and white TV in front of me? I was so excited watching this game and the truth of the matter is, two of the gentlemen that were playing basketball for Providence College that day, I was watching them on TV from New Hampshire are two of my best friends today.

00;02;28;03 - 00;02;28;13
Liz Kay
Oh, my.

00;02;28;13 - 00;02;48;28
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Goodness. And a Sinclair and Skip Pace best friends to date. So I was inspired and I can remember I remember calling the Providence College every day because I had initiated the transfer. I had made Dean's list both semesters. Well well, I was I had only recorded my first semester and had made Dean's list. And I was so excited.

00;02;48;28 - 00;03;09;14
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I was getting by to telephone every day calling Providence College. And when I called, I can remember calling one Friday and the young lady said to me the other day and she said, Yes, you know, you've been accepted. I kind of jumped up as a cell phone. I was so excited. So I had packed up my bags, went back home for the summertime, work during the summertime.

00;03;09;14 - 00;03;17;21
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And then starting September 1967, I showed up at Providence College campus, and the rest is history.

00;03;18;18 - 00;03;22;14
Liz Kay
And you did become an athlete at peace? Absolutely.

00;03;22;14 - 00;03;23;15
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Basketball. Oh, yeah.

00;03;23;15 - 00;03;26;20
Liz Kay
I had I was just wondering how did that shape your experience?

00;03;27;03 - 00;03;49;14
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Well, it it was it was a it was a wonderful experience. I had been a transfer student. I had to sit down for a year, but I but I worked an all year long with the freshman team Jim Croce, Jimmy Larranaga, Ray Johnson. We worked out with them for the course of the year, and then of course I played the following year, but it was a wonderful experience.

00;03;49;14 - 00;04;16;09
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
First time I ever flew on a plane was with Providence College, and I actually had an opportunity to play at Madison Square Garden against UCLA. I got in towards the end of the game at UCLA and I scored two points. I believe I did, but it was a wonderful experience and I live comfortably today knowing that I kind of I was able to live out part of my dream before I left college.

00;04;16;10 - 00;04;30;03
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
But but I can remember because after I played Providence College, I started becoming more serious about my career and I started systematically moving away from basketball because I had other things that I had to accomplish in my life.

00;04;30;23 - 00;04;36;13
Liz Kay
Tell us about the formation of Providence's Afro-American society. What led to that?

00;04;37;06 - 00;05;03;08
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Well, you have to remember I try to remember, especially for your younger viewers. That was a pretty turbulent period in our history in America. The civil rights movement joined us during the sixties. You had a lot of issues during the sixties. You had racial tension during the city's civil rights movement. Was was certainly in effect. Martin Luther King was killed.

00;05;03;09 - 00;05;34;18
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Robert Kennedy was killed. And just as importantly, many of us, especially in particular those of us on college campuses, especially males, were subject to the dress massacre January 1969, I believe, was the first lot of redress. And most of us on campus were very, very concerned about that before it had gone to college. You know, I was gung ho about boys fighting in the military and things like that.

00;05;34;18 - 00;06;02;19
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
But when I got on the college campus, things started to change, especially in light of the fact that the Vietnam War was was one that was it wasn't favored after a while in our country. And and I can remember speaking with Father Morris at the time, Father Brian Morris at the time. And I was telling him that we were very concerned about that.

00;06;02;20 - 00;06;31;17
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
We were very concerned about it on the show, too. But back then we had about 3100 students at Providence College, all males, but probably one 2% of the student body was was African-American. And being more politically correct, they use an African-American. So I'm be mindful and mindful of the fact that back then we called ourselves Afro Afro-Americans at the time.

00;06;32;07 - 00;07;06;20
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
But and and we were very concerned about the shortage of African-American male students on campus and the shortage of African-American teachers. So I had a wonderful relationship with the then Dean Thomas Peterson. And so the Morris we organized we caucus together and decided I decided to initiate this process to invite those of us that were on campus that were African and African descent to form this Afro-American society.

00;07;07;20 - 00;07;58;16
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And the interesting thing about it was that it did trigger a correspondingly positive response for the college, because I graduated in June 1970, and Providence College had invited about 30 African-American male students on his campus to the first Martin Luther King scholarship program. And I was the first director, as a matter of fact. You guys like Marvin Barnes and Charles Newton, Joe Caffey, Alan Baker, and a number of individuals who made significant contributions to not only Providence, but our society in general, who came through that program during the summer of 1970.

00;07;59;13 - 00;08;11;22
Liz Kay
And, you know, that's a scholarship program that lives on today at Providence College. And what was that? It's what was that experience like? What was your role like as the director of that program?

00;08;12;03 - 00;08;37;22
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Well, first of all, I had these most of these young men had to we had to prepare them for matriculate and, of course, living away from home. So I believe we stayed in the dorm chat. Chapman Hall I believe they stayed in Chapman Hall. And I had to mentor all of them. I had to supervise them. I had to help them to make that transition from where they came from.

00;08;37;22 - 00;09;03;20
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Several of them came from communities outside of Providence, the first time being away from home, coming into an environment which was freedom only white. And I had to sort of like provide that bridge that was necessary to help them to get through the summer program. It was a matriculation program, and it helped them introduce them to college life.

00;09;04;08 - 00;09;07;02
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And then many of them went on and did did very, very well.

00;09;07;13 - 00;09;17;29
Liz Kay
Dr. Haig, so you have a long career as an educator, but it sounded like this was your first experience in education, was was directing the Martin Luther King scholarship program.

00;09;18;09 - 00;09;53;23
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Well. Well, well, you know, I've always been connected in my college days and even before my college days and helping helping youth, kind of steering them in the right direction, giving them advice, coaching them. So. So that was some activities that I had engaged in, but not I had an opportunity to actually meet young men who who was away from home for the first time attending college.

00;09;54;22 - 00;10;28;07
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
But my but my teaching career actually began once I left Providence College. I mean, I taught mathematics, as is the Providence Public School system. You know, I was an assistant principal in Providence. I was the Central office administrator in Providence. So I've had a number of years where I was actually kind of close to the campus, so to speak, following us to these young men that I talked about earlier, and also experiencing problems, college, taking on a whole new a whole new life.

00;10;28;20 - 00;10;42;28
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And you they invited young women to be a part of the campus. And I was happy that Roman started to increase slightly. The African-American student population of Brown and black population started to increase significantly, slowly. And I was pretty proud of that.

00;10;43;28 - 00;10;49;22
Liz Kay
And what what prompted you to choose education as a major as an undergraduate in the first place?

00;10;50;22 - 00;11;12;15
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Well, that's a good question. Well, I've always been somewhat some of my favorite teachers early on in high school and with the general high school in the Bronx. And I was pretty good at mathematics. I didn't like English, to be honest with you. I mean, today I love I love English just as my first love, quite frankly. But I had to go through a series of transitional periods to get there.

00;11;13;09 - 00;11;43;01
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
But and I knew I had a a proficiency, a propensity excuse me, proficient propensity to share information with others. And I was that type of person that people would gravitate to. And that's and mathematics was probably my first opportunity in order to to share my knowledge with others, a knowledge that I had taken, obviously, from college. So and so.

00;11;43;02 - 00;12;05;23
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
So teaching at that time became my first love. I don't I don't I don't teach mathematics. As a matter of fact, today one plus one is probably equal to five. I don't as a start teaching at a long time ago. But but that but but teaching became a vehicle that I used I would use throughout my life for sharing information with others.

00;12;05;28 - 00;12;30;10
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And, you know, I'm pretty obviously a leader. I mean, I was a principal who was system principal, a principal, a deputy superintendent, superintendent of schools. I've always been a leader of people, you know, and teaching whether it's teaching them to change process, whether to the change process, whether they're teaching about complex organizations, whether it's about just leadership in general.

00;12;31;16 - 00;12;38;00
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
But but it started, quite frankly, when I was a math teacher at Central High School in Providence.

00;12;39;04 - 00;12;50;10
Liz Kay
And so, as you mentioned, I think you you jumped kind of into educational leadership pretty quickly. You weren't in a classroom for very long. How did you what drew you in that direction?

00;12;50;19 - 00;13;18;00
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Well, that's just another excellent question. As a matter of fact, I would have probably started earlier, but Providence College did not offer a master's program in educational leadership until you've had back then maybe three years teaching. So I started out pretty early. Once I finished college, I went to Rhode Island College and only went to Rhode Island College because Providence College wouldn't admit me into their program at that time.

00;13;19;06 - 00;13;45;24
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And I realized that I needed to I needed to begin to explore other areas. I had this thing about I acquired this thing about developing the capacity of just to see things that you couldn't see. And that was really important for me because, you know, so as being so complex at that time and I needed answers to these complex questions.

00;13;45;24 - 00;14;07;22
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
So I wanted to figure out how to, how to access information. And certainly education allowed me to begin to open that door to see things that I couldn't see before. And then I realized that when I was appointed an assistant principal at Providence, that was on my way to bigger and better things, discovering what I was capable of becoming.

00;14;08;20 - 00;14;33;18
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
So the rest of my life became a mantra of mine, and I wanted to do it through leading other people and of course, some from my master's program. I immediately enrolled in Boston College, talked to a program. I traveled back and forth from Providence, Rhode Island to Boston for three straight years, as a matter of fact. Then we just finished my program full time program in three years.

00;14;34;04 - 00;15;00;22
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I also obtained my dissertation within three years. Yeah, as a matter of fact, some from from high school. I went to school ten straight years with a bachelor's degree, a master's degree and a doctorate. And I worked full time in Providence, traveling back and forth, not necessarily problems. I also worked in the Boston area during that time, and then I was able to at that time I worked for the Metropolitan Planning Project where I got my planning skills.

00;15;00;23 - 00;15;33;06
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I'm a strategic planning expert skills that I acquired early on. It allowed me to grow up in Boston, were dealing with this whole concept of creating these neutral, powerful, neutral sites that would attract both minority and majority kids in the Boston standard metropolitan area. My dissertation came out of that. I did an editorial study with administrators and board members towards voluntary collaborative metropolitan education.

00;15;34;11 - 00;15;56;11
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
So I started developing this just this this proficiency in understanding how do you begin to lead these complex organizations? And, and and then from there, I left Providence in maybe 1977, 78, and I moved to the West Coast.

00;15;56;26 - 00;16;19;08
Liz Kay
Right. So your travel you've got a lot of travel under your belt. But it began in the seventies when you were traveling around the country to these different school systems. And so I was intrigued because you mentioned you just you had spent ten straight years in school between your bachelor's masters and your your doctorate. But then later on in your life, you actually returned to the classroom again to get your law degree.

00;16;19;12 - 00;16;52;28
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Absolutely. Well, I think I think this whole thing is all related to me discovering what I was capable of becoming so the rest of my life. I mean, I you know, I just didn't I never believed in just simply learning to be learning and then using that learning for the rest of my life. I always, always believed in trying to to test myself, to better myself, to further develop myself, to have a better understanding.

00;16;52;28 - 00;17;18;12
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
As a matter of fact, if you look at all of my books, if I can jump ahead for a moment, all of them deal. All of them deal with topics that I knew nothing about. I needed to learn more about. So I've always had this this sense of developing myself, getting smarter and smarter. So myself, you know, smarter and smarter so I can better be better able to see things that I couldn't see.

00;17;19;02 - 00;17;47;11
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Justice, capacity to be able to see things that you can't see has something to do with how you develop yourself. And you develop the capacity to be able to understand things better, to look at them differently, to understand how how they came about, what the rules are, so that you can better understand how to utilize yourself, how to utilize them when you're working with people and trying to move these complex organizations.

00;17;48;11 - 00;18;21;10
Liz Kay
And I imagine just as it was when you were a student at Providence College, that most of the school systems and school districts that you became a leader in, that you were often one of a small group of African-American people in central office in, you know, leading these meetings. And just what were some of the things what were some of the skills or or Trixie we do to to work well with people who may not have had experience working with African-American people before or may have reservations in their mind.

00;18;22;01 - 00;18;54;02
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Well, I think I think one of the things that you really have to do is slow down, slow your life down, and you have to slow it down long enough so that you can begin to understand why people behave the way they behave. Because you have to because they have to become a part of of the organization. And you can't let things like racial issues and things like that get in the way.

00;18;54;02 - 00;19;22;17
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Not when you're running these complex organizations. You've got to work together. Part of part of that. The task that I engaged in was empowering the environments that they operate out of. In other words, back in office long enough and seeing what needed to be applied to a team, for instance, empowering the team so that they can move the organization without you being the one telling them what to do.

00;19;24;07 - 00;19;45;27
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I can remember there was a time when I had a meeting with my staff when I was the superintendent of schools and I was sitting around a table of about ten of us and two of the people that were guests. And an hour into the meeting, one of the guests asked a staff person who was at the table, Can we do this meeting again again next month?

00;19;45;28 - 00;20;02;23
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And the staff person says, Well, I'll check on the heat schedule. And they said, Why do you have to check Entourage? He said, Just make sure he's going to be available there. Oh. So he said he wanted to make sure that Dr. Haig's going to be available. He says, Where's Dr. Haig? He said, Dr. Higgins read at the table.

00;20;02;23 - 00;20;29;00
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
You read opposite you. You never knew that I was the superintendent of schools because that's how I operated. You know, you empower the environment, your power, the team, so that people can assume the response, the leadership responsible and contribute to the organization as well. So that was one of the tactics that I used. I mean, there's several of them.

00;20;29;00 - 00;21;07;19
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And it has to do with how you how you employ your leadership, your leadership style, when when you use command leadership, which is which is rare, and you only do that in certain situations. I mean, so, so so you have to create an environment to make people feel comfortable about, about working with you to move to move the organization forward in order to do that again, you have to be able to to reach down and see things that they can't see and see things that you couldn't see before in order to get them to work with one another and to move the organization.

00;21;07;19 - 00;21;10;13
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
So that's just one example.

00;21;11;04 - 00;21;18;08
Liz Kay
Dr.. You've shared that you feel like you've benefited from the liberal arts education you received at Providence. How have that liberal arts helped you?

00;21;19;16 - 00;22;12;27
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Well, I think it has. It has it has allowed me to access information beyond, for instance, math and then focus in on math, taking courses like sociology and and and Western Civs and and and and literature courses and things like that. Kind of expand my understanding about the world in which we live in so I can better communicate, make better decisions, be more responsive, recognizing the fact that I can grow beyond just simply teaching mathematics and then ultimately using all of that information to make decisions and guiding my life and guiding other people, which is something that obviously I spent most of my professional life doing.

00;22;13;07 - 00;22;51;21
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
So a liberal arts education and, you know, both don't understand about liberal arts education. I mean, Fareed Zakaria, one of my heroes from CNN, a foreign anchor, a foreign a journalist, says that it doesn't kick in until you're six, you're six to your six job. Well, it didn't kick in for me, quite frankly. So my my my 17th job quite soon when I started writing writing books because, you know, in order to write books, as you know, you have to be a master at communicating, which is something that I didn't specialize in early on.

00;22;51;21 - 00;23;32;21
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
So I had to pretty much teach myself over the years to be able to do that. So I am very, very thankful for Providence College, quite frankly, for offering that opportunity to expand my horizons, to help me understand what it was to factor in more disciplines, help me and problem solving. Over the years, making decisions over the years and also being comfortable around other people, especially people, quite frankly, who didn't look quite frankly like they didn't look like me, didn't matter what color, ethnicity, ethnicity, ethnicity they were, it allowed me to better communicate with them.

00;23;33;24 - 00;23;36;11
Liz Kay
Let's talk more about your writing when did you start writing fiction?

00;23;37;15 - 00;24;10;23
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I started writing fiction. My first novel was called The Old Man of the Mountain The Trial of the Assassin. I was able to sort of combine some of my legal education with my acquired writing skills, you know, one of my one of my most favorite writers over the years, and this is Mark Twain and I'm going to link this with something I talked about earlier, developing the capacity to see things that you can't see.

00;24;11;04 - 00;24;43;01
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And what Mark Twain helped me to understand back then in the early, maybe 2000, ten, 2011, around that period, Mark Twain says something like, you take two characters, you create it, you take these two characters and you throw them into your manuscripts. Something is bound to happen and there's nothing you can do about it. Then you spend the rest of your time and your manuscript following after the consequences of those occurrences.

00;24;43;01 - 00;25;14;00
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And before you know it, your novel is finished and you haven't contributed anything. Now what's so powerful about it is that through through that methodology, it allows you to see things you couldn't see before. And all of us have that capacity. And I discovered that through Twain. So when I sit down and write and I've written ten novels, five of them, six by six, which is published, I have one ready to go next year.

00;25;14;00 - 00;25;42;13
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
When you're ready to go the year after that, when you're ready to go, the ascent and I just finished recently my test novel that set that that will be published after the others that I just mentioned. I sit down I don't have writer's block. And because of Mark Twain, I just sit down, quite frankly, in the morning at 4:00 in the morning, at 430 in the morning, I revisit the last paragraph of of what I wrote the day before.

00;25;42;24 - 00;26;16;04
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And then I then access those characters that Mark Twain talked about. And I just let those characters do what they supposed to do. And before you know it, I'm writing, I mean, fluently. It's just a wonderful and I discovered that once I discovered that, writing became easy for me. But again, again, what's critical here is to understand me releasing that, that that ability to be able releasing releasing the ability that inherently had never knew I had it.

00;26;16;04 - 00;26;37;26
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
But once I access it, it allowed me to be able to see things that I couldn't see. And that, along with the other things that I've talked about earlier, helped to empower me and understand how it was so important for me to continue to develop myself and to grow. And quite frankly, I'm just starting and I'm 73 years old and I'm just starting.

00;26;38;24 - 00;26;45;12
Liz Kay
But I have to ask, out of concern, you mentioned that you start writing at 430, but what's your sleep patterns like? When do you go to bed?

00;26;47;02 - 00;27;01;23
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Well, you know, my wife tells me all of the time I need more sleep and I'm working on that. But I've been doing any Sinclair, we can tell you. I've been doing that since we were we were in college, and I've always been up early in the morning. This is the best times for me to the sink. You know, it's quiet.

00;27;02;06 - 00;27;11;19
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
There's no noise, you know, and I just sit down and just do what I do best. That's learned.

00;27;11;19 - 00;27;22;02
Liz Kay
And so that, hey, you have another superlative dimension. You've visited more than 78 countries some of the multiple times. How did you develop this love of travel and which have been your favorite destinations?

00;27;22;16 - 00;27;50;23
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Oh, that's a good question. Well, I started traveling early on. As a matter of fact, I even toured Europe on a motorcycle by myself. This is 1720 miles and in Europe some some years ago. But I developed this again. It goes back to what I said earlier, developing the capacity to see things that you can't see. And one way of doing that, I found out, was through travel.

00;27;51;22 - 00;28;12;27
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Traveling allowed me to access these places that understand myself better, to understand the role that I not only play in America, the role that I played in the home and accessing information in the rest of the world, throughout the world, which enabled me to better turn to better to better be able to tell stories. I mean, I'm a storyteller.

00;28;13;09 - 00;28;45;04
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And quite frankly, telling stories becomes easier when you when you have travel as much as I have. I mean, I've been on the African continent probably no less than 16 times. And I've been as you said, it's been to South Africa about eight times. I've been all over the Middle East. So, so so I bring to the table a wealth of information that I've acquired and that sound very handy when I sit down starting to write to tell stories.

00;28;45;22 - 00;29;06;24
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Perhaps that's one of the reasons why I don't have a writer's block when I write is because I have so much in my head. And again, these things were not in my head before acquiring these things has been has been powerful and it has allowed me to to travel. And quite frankly, I'm going to do that until I leave this world.

00;29;06;28 - 00;29;27;20
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I just absolutely love traveling. So I talked about earlier, the first time I flew on a plane was it was with a bus with Anderson Claire. And then we went to Dayton, Ohio, to play the play against Lincoln State. And and I've been I've been flying planes ever since then. I mean, I just I've just find it's extraordinarily powerful.

00;29;27;25 - 00;30;08;11
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And again, like, you know, we both come from the Bronx. You know, I could have lived in the Bronx for the rest of my life and did nothing but just live in the Bronx. But I finding out I better appreciate the Bronx, but traveling to places like Romania, Czechoslovakia, excuse me, formerly the Czechoslovak Republic of Czech, now or to Moscow or to or to North Korea, excuse me, South Korea actually looking over the demilitarized zone between North and South or to or to Beijing or or to or to Taiwan or so.

00;30;08;11 - 00;30;29;15
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I've been to the Philippines twice. I've been to Indonesia. I'm this is a wonderful place that all of us should have an opportunity to travel to. But these travel experiences have enabled me to see the world in a way which I'm able to to express myself in a way that has allowed me to write these ten novels.

00;30;30;03 - 00;30;36;25
Liz Kay
And so you mentioned that European trip, that motorcycle tour. When did you take that trip? Was it before or after your doctorate.

00;30;38;14 - 00;31;03;15
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Owes much, much to my doctor. As a matter of fact, it was even after I I was before I went to law school. It was when it was when I was superintendent of schools in Hartford, Connecticut, as a matter of fact. And what I did was it was a wonderful experience I had I didn't I didn't take my motorcycle over to Europe.

00;31;03;15 - 00;31;31;24
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
What I did was I owned I had a motorcycle and I had I can remember being in the garage where I lived and I lived in the complex. And I remember in a garage and I was I was literally preparing myself, knowing that that how I prepared myself will help me to better to to tour Europe. When I rented a motorcycle in and put home, which is right outside of Munich, Germany and what I do.

00;31;31;25 - 00;31;53;15
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
So I went over there with a soft bag. I know I needed a soft bag so I can fold the bag up once, of course. And I was able to take all of my equipment from there. And obviously I needed to put them on a note to facilitate at all. So I went flew to Frankfurt, spent the night in Frankfurt, got myself together.

00;31;53;15 - 00;32;14;24
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And then I then I flew from Frankfurt to Munich and then put in time was right next to Munich where I got my motorcycle, at least a motorcycle, which was similar to the bike that I had in back in the States. And then I drove for the first time on the autobahn back to Frankfurt, about a three hour drive, getting ready for this long tour.

00;32;14;24 - 00;32;45;28
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And then that next morning I got up and I went from Frankfurt to to Amsterdam from Amsterdam State a couple of days from Amsterdam to the Brussels state, a couple of days from Brussels, I went down to Calais, France, took the ferry over to Dover, England, from over England to London, from London back to Dover, England. And then actually Calais, France and Calais to Paris, from Paris to Strasbourg, France, in Strasbourg, France to Munich.

00;32;47;00 - 00;33;04;02
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And then I dropped my bike off and flew back to the Frankfurt and I knocked on the door of the hotel I was staying in. And this lady opened the door and it was my wife. She had just flown in from from New York City. And then I knew for the next two weeks we were going to be in Europe.

00;33;04;02 - 00;33;27;05
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And I knew I had to slow my life down at that time. But I had just a wonderful experience doing that by myself. So I've always pretty much lived like that because I'm pretty much a loner and I enjoy living that I enjoy, especially during that time of my life, learning again, developing the capacity to see the things that may have dreamt about, never saw.

00;33;27;05 - 00;33;37;04
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
But I developed the capacity to see to see things that I needed to see. And again, because of that, it has allowed me to use those experiences in my writing.

00;33;37;29 - 00;33;45;10
Liz Kay
In some of your work experiences, you actually lived abroad as well. Did your family come with you when you were in Qatar? In other ways?

00;33;45;10 - 00;34;06;00
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
That's an excellent question. My wife came in. She spent three and a half years there. But my grandson, I have three grandkids to live in California and one who lives with me in Florida. He came with me and spent ten and a half years with me over there. I was so thankful that my daughter had allowed him to come with me.

00;34;06;13 - 00;34;38;18
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And of course, I became home twice a year. But but he's had such a tremendous experience just being with me and living in the Middle East. It was just it's just it's an outstanding experience, not only for me, but for his growth and development as a young man. He'd be 30 years old in a couple of weeks, quite frankly, but he was able to travel with my wife back and forth at times, and he's been to places like Singapore and he's been places me like France and and in the UK.

00;34;39;09 - 00;35;02;14
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
He's been to Saudi Arabia, he's been to the Middle East in countries United Arab Emirates cutoff, of course, because we live there. And he's moved me to Germany, Poland. He wanted him to go to Auschwitz with me. And I didn't mention this. Then I had an opportunity. I got to getting a point for a second, but I'll get back.

00;35;02;26 - 00;35;29;15
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I had an opportunity I had I got an honorary doctorate in upstate college in and it's no longer in existence in East Orange, New Jersey. And I was honored with Olympia Dukakis, rest in peace and with Elie Wiesel, who was a Holocaust survivor, who encouraged me to the visit with and I had an opportunity to visit just one in Birkenau.

00;35;29;15 - 00;35;54;29
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I'll switch two and I'll switch three. As a matter of fact, my novel that just came out just came out a couple of weeks ago. The first chapter actually talks about that experience. And of course, I give my experiences to my characters. But but again, being able to develop the capacity to see things that you couldn't see. And in this case, I was able to see it by traveling there.

00;35;55;18 - 00;36;15;11
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And then of course, I was able to write about it, but my grandson has had a wonderful experience with me. And then my other grandmother, my granddaughter has had an opportunity to meet me in Spain with my wife while I was in Qatar. And we spent time in Barcelona and Spain. So my grandkids have benefited from my so from from, from my travels.

00;36;16;20 - 00;36;38;28
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
What, what a, what a wonderful way to live a life, in my judgment, because I've had some tremendous experiences. And of course, you know, I try to share them as much as I possibly can. And certainly if you read any of my novels, all of my experiences, my novel, my characters experience takes place in places all around the world, and those are places where I've been.

00;36;39;26 - 00;36;46;01
Liz Kay
Can you discuss your role in Qatar? How did you how did that develop? How did you get plucked from a school system? It it's it's.

00;36;46;13 - 00;37;23;26
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Well, as I said earlier, that I was a planner and a strategic planning cut was cut. It was involved in a powerful reform initiative called a powerful reform initiative back in 2004. And what they were doing, they were transform rising all of their government schools, about 275 government schools, systematically over a number of years into what you would call in America charter schools, where each school would have a legal identity and an owner and operator would take over those schools.

00;37;24;10 - 00;37;58;15
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
My job was to go there, come company with several other people, and to transition those schools from government schools to charter schools. I stayed there within two or three months. I became the director of independent schools. I brought in about 90 experts from all over the world to help us, because this was this was a new initiative to help us to craft the the document that we would in order to to invite potential operators to fill out and to compete with one another.

00;37;58;15 - 00;38;23;27
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And we were and we and we put each operator at once. The application was 167 applications, and they were triple allocated and we were sent electronically. For instance, you if you were a potential operator, we would send your application to to three different operators. One, we could be in when one of those applications would go to Australia, one would go to the UK and one would go to to New York City as well.

00;38;24;16 - 00;38;50;25
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And then they would rate these these applicants. And then of course, that was at the lowest tier. There were 19 operators at the bottom. Five of those operators would receive the results of of of of of of those ratings. And then those five would reconcile the differences because now the three application applications, your three applications would come back to one of them and they'd have to reconcile the differences.

00;38;51;14 - 00;39;30;12
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And then ultimately it would go to the top level person and that top level person would give me the results. And as as it resolved and this was cohort three by the fact this was the third cohort in a wonderful sequence, but they would come to me and 35 of those operators were selected. And Sheikh Moussa, who was the wife of the emir at the time, who actually ran the educational systems in the state of Cairo, was very, very proud, because what I didn't tell you was the problem that they had prior to that was there were lack of transparency in cohort one and two wasn't facilitated in a most responsible way.

00;39;30;22 - 00;39;50;17
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
So they brought me over and she was very, very proud. As a matter of fact, I had the benefit of a five minute presentation before she could moza and I can remember walking in and saying, Your Highness, how are you this morning? I mean, I never did that one before, but it was a wonderful experience and she was very happy with the process and I was very, very proud of that.

00;39;50;17 - 00;40;14;03
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
So then that didn't last too long. It only lasted a few years because it was one of those things you have to deal with in in in an environment like this, you always have to reconcile tradition with anything that you want to advance with with tradition. And tradition won out in this case so that that whole initiative fell apart in about three years, quite frankly.

00;40;14;03 - 00;40;45;14
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
But I stayed there for 11 years, and I had an absolutely wonderful time. I mean, absolutely beautiful. While I was there, I worked for Elsa, the contract with an organization called Advent East out of Washington, DC. And what we were doing is identify and to a competitive process students from 44 different countries to go to America live with in the homes of Americans and go to school for a year.

00;40;46;01 - 00;41;11;29
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And when these kids came back to color, they were ambassadors. And I would work with them in developing them. I was their mentor and I did that for nine years or what an experience I had of this was this initiative. So it's just an and then of course, I travel all of the time every two months I was on a plane going someplace because I mean, you're not going to fly from from New York to South Africa every day, but you can do that from Qatar.

00;41;12;10 - 00;41;21;13
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
South Africa, from New York to South Africa is about 16 hour flight, but from current to South Africa is about 9 hours, you know, and that took advantage of that, quite frankly.

00;41;22;02 - 00;41;24;25
Liz Kay
You're definitely in a very central location when you're in kind of.

00;41;25;22 - 00;41;31;26
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Absolutely. Just a powerful experience. And I wish that experience for everyone, quite frankly.

00;41;32;27 - 00;41;37;15
Liz Kay
Well, that way, if someone were interested in finding your books, where can they find them?

00;41;38;05 - 00;42;03;13
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
They they they're available today online from Amazon. Amazon Amazon Bookstore. Barnes Noble's bookstore dance publishing company bookstore. They can also purchase them from Target's Target and Walmart bookstore. I think those are the five locations that at this point in time.

00;42;04;00 - 00;42;10;25
Liz Kay
They're distributed there as well. Excellent. So they can look out for the newest the newest volume you've published, which is Baldwin Village.

00;42;11;06 - 00;42;31;09
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
Yes, it's Baldwin Village. It's my it's my it's my heart. It's the it's the one it's the one book that I believe has allowed me. Quite frankly, you know, the great thing about Baldwin Village is that it had the benefit of five of the novel experiences that I had obtained from five of the novels. And I think I put this one together.

00;42;31;17 - 00;42;56;21
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I crafted it in a way that allows for the sort of several mysteries to throughout the novel. And the reader. The reader is in a in a position to do not want to put the novel down based on with a friend of mine told me, let me tell you something, a quick story about a girlfriend of mine that I grew up with.

00;42;57;20 - 00;43;11;00
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I asked her to read this Oscar to read the novel on a Sunday, and she sent it back to me on Wednesday. And I said, Listen, as a you know, don't you know, I don't need it.

00;43;11;00 - 00;43;11;19
Liz Kay
Back that quickly?

00;43;11;19 - 00;43;32;15
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
She says ten. I couldn't put it down. I said, what? I said, I've never heard this one before. So. So I literally read the book two more times. And I said to myself for a year because I wanted to see why she couldn't put the book dead. So I said, Wow. Right. That's fascinating so this happened less a year ago, February and March.

00;43;32;15 - 00;44;03;07
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
She contacted me. She says, Ted, I have some I have some photos of my father during World War Two. And I also have an itinerary that he took that that he use when he was when he traveled from Staples in Long Island, quite frankly, down to to Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town, South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa to Cairo, Cairo, Egypt.

00;44;03;07 - 00;44;22;17
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And he fought in northern Africa. And the beautiful thing about it is and she said to me, she says, take could you do something with this now, which she didn't know at the time was said. All of those places I've been to, I've been to Rio, I've been to Cape Town, South Africa, I've been to Cairo. Anyway, this this happened in March and September 21st.

00;44;22;17 - 00;44;42;24
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I gave her the manuscript of a novel that I wrote about a father, and that's called Cultures of Silence. And it's going to be coming out next year. I'm looking for a publisher right now. So that's the exciting thing about writing. And again, it's an illustration of the travels that I have taken. I was able to I mean, obviously it's a historical fiction.

00;44;42;24 - 00;44;54;06
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
So so a lot of it is I've created this stuff, but, but it's around. So some, some omit some things that actually happened in this case here during World War Two.

00;44;54;17 - 00;44;59;11
Liz Kay
Well, Patrick, it's been wonderful chatting with you today. Thanks so much for joining us.

00;44;59;11 - 00;45;24;17
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
I want to thank you. And of course, I hope the I'm so thankful for being a product of Providence College. And this is kind of been a lifelong experience, a lifelong experience. And I intend to continue to be a part of it. I want to thank you and Chris for taking this opportunity to invite me, to share and to those things.

00;45;25;20 - 00;45;31;25
Theodore Josiha Haig, J.D., Ed.D. '70
And most of this this journey started with me. Graduate from Providence College in 1970.

00;45;32;21 - 00;45;45;22
Liz Kay
Subscribed to the Providence College podcast and all the usual places including iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play and Spotify as well as your smart speaker. If you like what you hear, please review and share with others. Thanks for listening and go friars.