Meet Dr. Ken Steorts

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dr. Ken Steorts. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Dr. Ken, thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.

I am not a naturally generous soul. I am self-focused, vision-driven, and purpose hungry. Orienting around building and pressure can give plenty of room to a lack of generosity and I know that desire to keep resources for myself very well. It is ingrained in me from my upbringing, where lack was common and I learned to fend for myself in a single parent household, and it is encouraged in culture, with self-orientation abounding and messages to young people to do everything for yourself. So, I know the immediate gut reaction to loss or narrowing of available resources, and I feel an actual excitement for the struggle at times because I identify with it.

My generosity comes from my Christian faith in several ways and I can trace it back to a number of instances because I became a follower of Jesus Christ as an adult and saw the change in my life. In leadership of Visible Music College, I designed a creative Christian community at the core – before we are a college, we are a Christian community of believers – and caused the base rule of operation to be one of Christ-likeness. Jesus was generous with his time, his energy, his focus on others, and his words. The discipline throughout the school of being in community with this generosity of self and resource has driven me to take a long view with staff development, given room to grow for young leaders, allowed me to be generous yet firm within guidelines for student mistakes (always aim for restoration), and kind as an organization in regards to intellectual property and collaboration with competitive schools.

We had a change in staff in the mid 2010s and I was confused as to how we got there and how to get out. I spent a lot of energy listening and attempting to bring about a consensus in direction and leadership with opposing groups within the staff as we grew the college. I was generous with the time and focus and care and direction and patient with the progress, giving young leaders a chance, and those struggling with our direction time to ask and learn and decide how to progress with us. Some people saw this as weakness but I knew what I was doing – being like Jesus in bringing least harm. It worked to consistently build a supportive community through trials.

One other time more recently, we were working with a large multi-national ministry school and helping them begin their journey as an accredited college. Many times they took ideas from us and made them their own and built without us and without regard to what they promised to do for us or with us. I remained generous with our spirit of cooperation even while seeing what they were doing and knowing, in the end, that they just could not unfocus on self to see us. Our contribution was to the larger story of both institutions and not hold back resources for ourselves. It costs something to be generous but I always love the fruit it brings in relationships and resilience in ourselves. I love it, eventually, not easily.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Visible Music College has been ahead of its time since 2000. We solved the puzzle of practical music education for modern music at the college level by simply putting the music industry tasks and realities into the cohort model and acting like students were training for jobs after school, or even during school. We opened up the classroom and labs and internships and course content to rel world daily systems. I’m proud of that.

Visible graduates students with a one year certificate that are ready for work and ministry. We graduate leaders with a BA who are offered jobs as soon as they step off that platform at commencement because they’ve had real jobs throughout school, both internally and externally, and they’ve practiced like the future is now. We graduates masters in leadership for the church and industry too.

I am excited about the transition we will make in 2025, after 25 years of serving in music and ministry education, to form a more nimble and responsive version of ourselves and closer to the churches we serve already. We want to unencumber ourselves even more from the higher education systems that keep growth for students back. Higher ed is still antiquated and territorial and ivory tower and not helpful for creative Christian artists, managers, audio technicians, and media creators. Students are voting with their feet and not attending college as much. They go right into work and feel empowered by video training and short term work. We have always been very practical and ready to get them in jobs so we will continue to stay ahead of the curve with offering placement and training at a high level while reducing debt and barriers to college hesitant students. Roughly 50% of our students have always been “Visible or no college” types and we are proud of that artistic and creative reality.

Visible is a creative Christian community with over a thousand members and over a hundred current next generation leaders forming inside the college cohorts. Our global spread will continue in 2025 and our cooperation with churches and studios will grow to point to other destinations for the work rather than just inside the classroom. Video and online and remote and generously building other communities, not just our own. That is the horizon for Visible and, one day, higher education.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The top quality I would suggest to people starting out is to look for solutions for everyone, not just self. Be a person that is memorable to others as you build by helping all. People remember you for your giving spirit and they cooperate and build your brand for you.

The best skill I can suggest is to develop your presentation skills. You will be selling your vision every day for the rest of your life, so learn to layout google docs, slide shows, PDF making, assign colors to ideas, speak well to others, memorize people’s names, honor those around you, attend uncomfortable events, and talk openly about what you are doing while looking at people in their eyes and telling a story they’ve never heard is possible. Present, present, present!

An area of knowledge you should pull from is the Bible. I know people think it is an ancient religious text that is hard to decipher, but just reading the words of Jesus that are remarkably kind and clear and anti-authority in the best way is life changing. You should learn about people through Jesus’ teachings and practice some of this in your world, it will change your perspective and empower you to be effective.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

I have found the Bible, and especially the New Testament stories of Jesus’s teachings to be invaluable in growing my work and school, even beyond the ministry part.

Jesus took care of the least and lowest people. He related to everyone. This brings a great joy while pursuing you dreams and building teams and organization. Follow that example.

Jesus wrestled with the authorities on perceptions of how to do things in tradition. I find this valuable in questioning the “way things are done” in higher education and give to the authorities what is theirs, which is reports and evaluations, and give to the students and the dreamers what is theirs, which is innovation and promise.

Jesus also always made a place for his followers and I love this. When I have opportunities personally, I look to hand those to younger and newer leaders, often those with fewest opportunities, and try to elevate others.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.visible.edu
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/visible_ken/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kensteorts/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@visiblemc