episode 6: dean tony sozzo

March 24, 2021

I didn’t miss a day in high school – they actually gave out, for three of us, a best attendance award and I got one of them. I loved high school so much, and I was really smitten by the teachers – I thought they were amazing and I said to myself at the time, “I think Id like to be like them.” So at fourteen years old, I caught some kind of a bug about education and about becoming a teacher. You know how you would have to get up in front of the class and make a report? Well, Tony over here had to do more than one – I just had to get back there and do more, so you can say my presenting and teaching began in that freshman year at St. Helena High School. Since then, I have never wavered from that feeling of wanting to be an educator and a teacher. From there I went to college and majored in history and political science and education.

My very first job after school was teaching a seventh and eighth grade class – I had 6 sections with an average of about 36 students per class, so that was quite a baptism by fire. I taught history and geography, but I was trying to be very innovative and interactive. We would have cultural days, where the students dressed up and brought foods and artifacts from the cultures we were learning about and the likes. I love jazz music, and I think you can learn a lot from jazz.  Jazz is very much democracy in action: you have the ensemble, working together as a team, but each player is an individual who each have their solos. You really get to see the musicians put their spin on the pieces, put their personality into it. Its just fascinating to watch the human condition thrive that way.

While I was finishing my graduate degree in education, I was also working part time in the offices at Iona College. I was offered a job in financial aid by someone very prominent in the field at the time, so I said “sure.’ I thought it was a great way to continue educating and working with students! Not long after that, I went back and got another degree, at Columbia University Teachers College, focusing on adult education. I was interested in what motivates adults and how adults learn differently. And in the process, I learned about the different modalities of teaching. How you present information to different people, how you really have to sense where people are coming from, how you have to know what their moods are. You need to be able to let your students, let the audience, direct your teaching. I really try to make it personal – you have to connect, to try to keep it human. I do have to stop and tell myself: “you’re no different than they are sitting there…you were there!"  We all share commonalities, and things don’t have to be as complex as we tend to make them, so my job is to find the simplicity and the commonalities connected to a human being’s life; to tie the material into the human beings in front of me.

Later, I worked at a two-year private college in Yonkers, New York with students of families with lower incomes, who were also too busy/distracted with life outside of the classroom to be terribly interested in life inside of the classroom. And I really felt that the people I worked with, the students we met, the work we were doing really counted. It’s easy to teach someone that is brilliant and can be dedicated. But when somebody needs to be pushed along, supported to their highest level of thinking, that is a skill that will last them the rest of their lives, and that is really rewarding.

I think one of the things that got me into loving adult education is the idea that just because adults are older doesn’t mean the challenges won’t be there anymore. Adults make 8-10 transitions in their lives professionally. You learn that adults are more complex than you think and can contribute in very different ways, if you can get people to believe in themselves, to trust in themselves, to make good decisions, to treat each other with respect. It’s my hope that the training and experience in my life can help get my students to a better place.

After 5 years with the school in Yonkers, I was just reading the Sunday New York Times one week and it was as if something loomed at me out from the page. It was just staring at me straight in the face. It was this job opportunity in the classified ads for the Director of Financial Aid at New York Medical College. And I said, "I think I'm going to apply." I interviewed on July 5th 1984, and after my interview they told me right then that I got the job, and I started August 15th of 1984 and have been here ever since.

Over the years I’ve come to believe that the most important thing someone could ever say to me is “Don’t worry Tony, I trust you.” “I love you” is nice, but when it comes to a relationship, once the trust is there than anything is possible. I have to do my share first to get people to trust me, so that we can put on events or talk about money, and then we can go from there. To me, every encounter with someone is unique and must count. I want each student to understand that if they walk down the hall and we stop to talk, at that moment they are the only person that exists in the world, they are the most important person in the world. I always believe that – there’s a saying that I was taught as a kid; “you’re always auditioning for the next time.” You always want to build on what you have developed previously, and if you screw up that moment, you may not get another chance. And if you don’t start off right, you will never get that second audition, right?  

When my parents passed away, I found that I felt very alone. I was very close to them, and I am very close with my sister, but its weird to be an orphan. I hardly remember doing anything that year [that they passed] – I didn’t plant my usual garden. It was just the way that I reacted, though I don’t suggest that for anyone. But when you have other people in your life, you remember those things that they said. At the time, someone suggested that I get pets, so I got two cats. And then you start to realize that other people need you and that you can help take care of them, and they can give you such support. And as you start to break out of it, and your parents become good memories, and you think about all of the good things they left you with. I am here because of them, so of course I am going to carry on and prove that they did a good job. I want to be one of those people – I hope that I have been this all of these years – where somebody will come back and say “You know, he treated me well” and “He really helped me.”

There was one alum that I have talked to over the years; his parents passed away and he really remembers talking to me about it. He said that he could not have gotten through without talking to me. It makes me scared to hear that, because you don’t always know how what you say will impact someone. So, words do matter, words matter, everything you say and do matters. And it’s great when you get older, thinking about all the people that helped me in my career or gave my inspiration – all of the high school teachers I thought were great, the guy that got me the first job, people I have met along the way at New York Med, colleagues you meet around the country. It just all feeds into a sort of ‘cross-pollination’ of groups and people, and you realize that none of us, none of us can do this alone. None. 

To that end, I feel that my role in the extracurriculars, my whole experience with the extracurriculars, the culture shows, the fun events, the community service, that keeps you as students alive, keeps you sane. I believe you have to have memories. You do this only once! My hope is that we build the memories so that 20 years from now, 30 years from now, you get to look back and say, “you know what, that was a great environment, and it really kept me whole.” And often there are events that we put on that are learning experiences. So I see the events as ways to help you feel well and that can impact your life that stay with you. Getting to be a part of that, getting to see students walking away from experiences feeling good about themselves and what they did, its amazing. Celebrating the human spirit, it’s just amazing. I can’t wait until we can get back to doing all of that stuff.

When we went virtual, at first I was excited. Once we got to about three weeks, four weeks in, I started thinking “Oh my goodness, this isn’t good.” And it got to me. If you’re a people person and you don’t have people around you, you’re a flower without water, you wilt.  I had to get through that, but I still had a mission. I told myself, “you still have a job to do – you have applicants calling, exit interviews, debt counseling, you’ve got to make sure you do your job, so stop feeling sorry for yourself.”  So, I’m on call now, students call me any time of day, all days of the week, and it’s a blessing I now truly cherish. There are always opportunities in everything, you just have to see them.

I do consider myself extremely lucky. I have spent most of my adult life here, witnessing all of this as an encourager. How do you not enjoy your life being around all of my colleagues of course and all of these students?

What are your 5 Favorite Artists on Spotify?
Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Sam Cooke, Louis Armstrong

If you couldn't work in your current field, what would you be doing instead?
I would be a songwriter or composer. I wouldn't care if you didn't know anything more about me but that I wrote that song, I wrote that piece that lives on forever. Yep, songwriter or composer, without hesitation. I think maybe a close second would be healthcare, something where you're helping people - I've grown to really appreciate the heroes, real heroes, especially this past year. So I think if I could do that, that might be second, but if I can compose music that people enjoy and play forever...that's pretty cool stuff.

Pick someone or something to give a shout-out to!
The students of New York Medical College as a whole. I'm not kidding! I'm not just saying this because it's the cliché thing to say - the students are why I am here now, there would be no reason to come to work without you guys. And I would say my colleagues that I work with right now are the best I've ever seen as a collective group, so I'll give them a shout-out too. This is a great team. I've never seen it like this here before - you don't realize, but these are the best old days...not the good old days, the best old days!

If someone wants to talk to you, they should lead with:
"Tony, do you have time to talk to me?" or "Tony, can I talk to you?" That's all I need, that's an invitation! But really, somebody may be vulnerable at that moment, and for them to come up and say that, that takes a lot. If someone is willing to open up to me and wants to talk to me...wow! You don't have to do that, you could have passed me by. That's very flattering! So really anything, its about the openness for me.