Meet The Prof, with Shane & Spence

MTP 10: PARENTS’ EDITION, Laurie Kubicek on Joy in the Classroom, College Send-offs, Perseverance, and the Power of Prayer

• shane hartley • Episode 10

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Laurie Kubicek is a Professor of Criminal Justice at Sacramento State, lkubicek@csus.edu

Laurie shares her journey into teaching, reflecting on the joy she found in the classroom and connecting with her students. She tells of her own tearful college send-off, the complexities of faith and academia, the importance of perseverance, and the power of prayer. 

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Shane (00:00)
Hey everybody, welcome to Meet the Prof. I'm Shane Hartley. My friend, Spence Hackney and I have the privilege of collecting questions from college students and then asking them to Christian professors. Our goal is to encourage Christ -centered conversations on the college campus. And I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for joining us. Our interviews have been really exciting to us so far. We feel like we learn something different in every single one.

And I think you're gonna enjoy today's, this is what we might call a Parent's Edition of Meet the Prof. Our interview is with Laurie Kubicek. And Laurie is a professor of Criminal Justice at Sacramento State. And Laurie is not only connected to students through being a professor, but she is a mother of a college student. And I think you're gonna enjoy her heartfelt experience of sending her son off to school.

So as you're listening to this, please try to think of a college student or a professor that would be encouraged to hear this and then afterwards forward the link to them. And now without any further ado, here is our interview with Laurie Kubicek.

Shane (01:12)
Well, Laurie, it is so great to be here with you and to be able to interview you. And how long have you been there at Sacramento State?

Spence (01:16)
Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (01:21)
I came to Sacramento State in 2002, so it starts to feel like forever, which is very strange. I started teaching right out of law school.

Shane (01:27)
Long time, yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (01:33)
I was young and broke and had all this law school debt. And I thought, sure, I'll do a side hustle. And so I taught this class.

Spence (01:41)
Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (01:43)
I was like, this is the best thing I've ever done. I just was like, I like can't believe I get to do this. And honestly, I think the students had a really good time.

Shane (01:48)
Wow.

What did you enjoy so much about teaching that time?

Laurie Kubicek (01:57)
I think it was the students, right?

I think I would have loved being in a courtroom and, you know, and, and doing all that. And instead I was in a civil litigation firm. It was not very exciting. And, and the civil teaching was just like, lights out. I was like, Oh my gosh, who gets to do this? Like was really my reaction. Like who gets to do this? So, so yeah.

Spence (02:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Shane (02:09)
Oh.

Spence (02:24)
So, so what, what were your parting words to your kid? We send him to college

Laurie Kubicek (02:28)
well, that's so fascinating. Okay, because we moved Ty across the country. So we live in California. We moved him to the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma.

I think we were all like just a little traumatized. It was just like, you know, oh my gosh, how is this happening? So like in terms, I mean, but here's the funny thing. Like we, it also meant that we got to spend four or five days there. A lot of the parents dropped off the kids and left, right? Like the people who could drive, people from Texas or people coming in from, you know, not too far away.

Shane (02:46)
That's quick.

Spence (03:01)
Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (03:06)
They just drove, they came to the panel meetings in Norman and then they left, right? Well, we stayed a few days because we're like, okay, we gotta go to Walmart, do some stuff. We couldn't fly with all this stuff. So we're like, okay, we're gonna pack what we can and then we'll do the setup and get your dorm figured out. And so we stayed a few days, which was like a treasure for us because it gave us an opportunity, I think, to just like digest.

Spence (03:07)
Yeah.

Mhm.

Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (03:36)
Okay, what are we doing? We're leaving this kid here.

Spence (03:36)
Mm-hmm.

What just happened?

Laurie Kubicek (03:40)
And the last day we were leaving, we had kind of a later in the day flight, and we're sitting in his dorm room. And I'm just like, we have like an hour. And I'm just like, I can't believe we're doing this. And my husband is like, we're balling. And we're trying to not ball. We're like, we're so excited for you. You know, we're so proud of you. And you know, you're just trying to... And it makes me cry.

Spence (03:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Ha ha

Yeah, yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (04:05)
We walked out and I was like, bud, I was like, dude, you have everything you need, right? You have every like, you are exactly where God's called you. We know it. And there's a huge story that is another podcast for how God provided the opportunity for tie to play football at the University of Oklahoma. It's ridiculous.

Spence (04:20)
Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (04:26)
when we went for our campus visit on our tour, the admissions officer was like,

amazing and he was like, I have something for you. He handed Ty this envelope and it was like, you got a full ride. So we go back to the hotel and Ty just says, I think this is where I'm supposed to be and my husband, Matt says, buddy, let me tell you something about the Christian life. There's a lot of times as believers that we experience things and we

Spence (04:42)
Mm.

Laurie Kubicek (04:55)
We look back later and we say, look what God was doing. Like, you know where it takes time. Like you look back and you go, okay, now I can see. Like you have to get some distance sometimes from things in your life to be able to look back and go, oh, that is what God was doing, right? Like, oh, okay, I get it now. And Matt goes, you are watching the Lord unfold his plan in front of your face and it doesn't happen very often. So enjoy it. Just enjoy it.

Shane (05:02)
Hmm.

Spence (05:11)
Yeah.

Yeah. Huh.

Shane (05:23)
good perspective.

Laurie Kubicek (05:24)
And I said to Ty, I was like, make much of Jesus. Just everybody you encounter, right? Like just make sure they know why you're here, right? We know why you're here. We know why you're gonna have this platform. We know why you're here. God's called you to do it, right? So just walk in it, right? Like just walk in that and...

Spence (05:29)
Make much of Jesus.

Huh. Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (05:54)
make much of him, like every opportunity you get, right? And in practical terms, he has a professor mom. So of course I've already briefed him in advance, right? I've already said, in the first two weeks on any college campus, Christian students, if they don't plug into Christian community in the first two weeks, they are like 50% less likely to ever plug into Christian community.

Spence (06:04)
Yeah, yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (06:18)
And so I said, we said to Ty the other day, I was like, okay, I think you need to go look, look at Cru, look at InterVarsity. I don't care. Find good Christian community. So he went to a Cru meeting and loved it. He's like, mom, it's my people. Right. I'm going to.

Spence (06:32)
Oh great, okay. Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (06:33)
They have two, yeah, he's like, they're on break for winter break, but in spring semester, they have two nights a week. They do men's small groups. He's like, I'm gonna see what works with my meeting schedule for football.

So I feel like it isn't magical, right? A lot of it's just practical. You want your kid to walk with the Lord? Well, make sure they find a good, healthy church. The first thing he did was find a church that he was comfortable

Spence (06:51)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Hey, let's talk about this theme of, of connecting because I've witnessed something interesting with, with my son and so he's, he's a sophomore at State, NC State here and he went and did six months on the mission field with YWAM. So he's like with these 20 people There's not technology, there's no cell service. So they talk a lot. And, um,

Laurie Kubicek (07:16)
Oh yeah.

Spence (07:23)
real deep friendships. So he goes to state and he, he feels he's in a small group. He's in church, but he feels, he feels like he's still looking for those deep relationships. because so many of us just kind of live in our little virtual bubbles. You know, students, this generation went to school virtually a lot of them. And, um,

And I wonder like what effect do you think that's having? What effect are you seeing and what advice would you give? next son that's getting ready to go to college

Laurie Kubicek (07:47)
and I would say to those young men, it's not going to happen fast, which is what I've said to Ty. I'm like, look, here's the fascinating thing. He is in a culture where like football is a brotherhood. It's like family.

Spence (07:52)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Kubicek (08:01)
You walked into that locker room with 124 other guys. And in your room, there's 20. He's a lineman, so he's in a room. His whole line room is 20 guys. You guys are like family.

Spence (08:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (08:17)
You have these layers of community,

But I think it's interesting to say that even though he would say that room is family, like he loves those guys already one season, he loves them. But it's not the same.

He's, who does he FaceTime when he gets sick? He got really sick at the end of the semester. He texted his small group from Sacramento. They're all at school in different places.

Shane (08:40)
Hmm.

Spence (08:43)
Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (08:46)
but that small group was built over five years of investment, meeting every week,

Shane (08:50)
Hmm.

Spence (08:51)
Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (08:53)
So he had that modeling, right? For them to see what it looks like to do in the community. What does it look like to tell each other the truth and talk about hard things? What does it look like to be honest, right? When you're struggling. So they had that luxury and you think five years of investment, well, that takes time. And the other day when we were talking about it at OU, I said the same thing is true. Those people are there.

Spence (08:57)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (09:19)
you have to find them and then you have to make the investment in them, right? Because it's as much about the investment in them as it is what you're hoping to gain in community.

Spence (09:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I heard two axioms in what you said. One was that learn your relational skills in real life. So you build a scaffolding to deal with the virtual. Don't learn your relational skills in the virtual world and try to apply them to real life. That's one thing I heard. And that's something I think I can do now in my own home.

Laurie Kubicek (09:48)
Yes.

Spence (09:51)
is make sure my kids are building in real life, IRL relationship skills, not virtual ones. And the other thing I heard was that, teach them to value relationship and value that and wait patiently for it to develop. Because we're so used to instant gratification.

Shane (10:08)
Laurie, I'm very curious. you were giving your son this advice on campus when you go to make much of Jesus. How are you able to do that as a professor?

Laurie Kubicek (10:20)
I honestly think this has been a work in progress. So I'm not gonna claim to have, to master this because I feel like I've only really been earnestly, actively trying to do this in kind of the second half of my career. Because I feel like the first half...

Spence (10:39)
Mmm.

Laurie Kubicek (10:42)
I didn't know a single other Christian. And

my classroom, I was always trying to be so careful to be objective. Like, I don't, I think I valued that marketplace of ideas principles so much that I, like, I wouldn't let my students know what my real opinion was about things. I would say, I'll give you both sides. I want you guys to think this through. I really valued.

Spence (10:53)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Uh, yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (11:06)
idea of them coming to it, Only what I think over time began to be clear is that non-Christian faculty are not doing that. They are 1,000% telling the students what the right answer is from their perspective. And so the students were never hearing what a Christian faculty member might think about a difficult issue.

Shane (11:29)
Hmm.

Laurie Kubicek (11:30)
over time, I think, the Lord used a couple of key things. We had an interversity undergrad staff.

person on campus. and she had the idea to go around and introduce herself to faculty, just

Hi, I'm Audrey Pua, I'm with the campus ministry, blah, I wanted to introduce myself. If you ever need anything, please reach out. So she starts working around the campus over the course of this year that she's there. And she starts, and I'm her faculty advisor for I.V. She comes back to me and says, look, I've met a bunch of Christian faculty. And I was like, what? Who are these people? Where have they been all my life? Right? I was like, what are you talking about?

Spence (12:10)
Ha ha

Laurie Kubicek (12:17)
And so Audrey says, I think we should get you all together. Like we should do a prayer meeting or something. And I was like, yes and amen. Let's do it. So Audrey has the bandwidth to walk the halls and meet faculty.

and she gathers this group of Christian faculty and we do a prayer meeting 20 of us around a table. And I was just like, okay, my mind is blown. It was faculty and staff. Our group is a faculty and staff group. So it wasn't all faculty, but my mind was just blown.

Shane (12:40)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Laurie Kubicek (12:52)
So that gives rise to the campus ministry that we have now for faculty at Sac State.

Spence (12:58)
Uh...

Laurie Kubicek (12:59)
you gotta love how the Lord works, right? It's not even faculty who, we didn't gather ourselves. It took some, the Lord had to use somebody else to help us because we couldn't pull it off.

But after that, and I began to connect with Christian faculty, and then David Zagrodny from Faculty Commons, I get introduced to David Zagrodny,

Spence (13:18)
Okay.

Laurie Kubicek (13:19)
He gets involved with our campus ministry. And as we start to do events for faculty, I start hearing about how faculty tell their students, their believers, just overtly. They just say, I'm a Christ follower in class. And this to me was like sounding. I was sort of like, I thought that was

objectively wrong, like in my mind, it had felt like the wrong thing to do,

I never felt comfortable standing up in front of my class and being like, hey, I'm a Christian, blah, blah. So my new idea after all this stuff was to stand up and say, beginning of the semester, when I'm telling my like, hey, I went to law school here. I was an attorney. This is what I do. Here's how long I've been here, blah, blah. I do my little spiel. I introduce myself and I say, my husband Matt. And my husband Matt actually is an adjunct.

Spence (13:54)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (14:12)
at Sac State too. So I always say you might have the other professor Kubitschek, he teaches the search and seizure class, you know, you might, you know, blah, we have three children, we go to church at River City Christian, our kids go to school at Christian school. And so it's like my opportunity, and I just, it's not a lot, but I'll say, you know, we love serving our community, we live in Rancho Cordova, we go to River City Christian Church in Rancho Cordova, and we love being a part of the community there.

Spence (14:13)
Yeah.

Yeah.

That's it, right?

Shane (14:27)
And.

Spence (14:35)
Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (14:39)
And that's it. I will tell you, so, so often, students will come up to me after class, I go to church, I go to blah blah, or they'll go, I go to River City. And I'm like, what service do you go to? And you know, oh, I go to 1130, which we go to 1130, so we actually go when a lot of the college kids go, because they don't want to roll out of bed for early service. So I'm like, well, I probably will see you at 1130. And you know, it's very sweet. I feel like...

Spence (14:48)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Laurie Kubicek (15:07)
that was like a transformational shift in thinking.

so Here's the thing, now I'm on the hook to engage with you in a way that honors the Lord, right? Because now I've told you, right? I've said I'm a Christ follower, I love Jesus. Now the way that I manage this classroom, the way I email with you, my interaction with you, is not gonna be short, it's not gonna be irritable.

Spence (15:13)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Shane (15:20)
Hmm.

Spence (15:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (15:33)
It's going to be kind and generous. I'm going to do everything I can to demonstrate God's love for you because I value you all students as humans way more than I care about whether you walked away understanding the law of homicide. Yes, that is my call. I'm going to do that work well. I do it well. That's why I'm here. But that's not my highest purpose. There is a higher purpose.

Spence (15:41)
Yeah.

Shane (15:47)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Kubicek (15:59)
And ultimately that purpose is to love and care for you. And I don't think there's a person on my campus, Christian or non-Christian, who would say that's a bad thing to do. to do. a bad thing to do. thing to do. to do. to do,

Spence (16:07)
Yeah.

Shane (16:07)
Right.

Spence (16:08)
a, like, I see why you're so happy now. Like we got on the call. I mean, you kind of, I get this read pretty quick. You're a happy individual, you

Laurie Kubicek (16:17)
Okay, funny side, I was once on a project where I was told I was too happy. I didn't know.

Spence (16:23)
Ah! Get angrier, Lori!

Shane (16:23)
Really? Is there such a thing?

Spence (16:27)
if they spend 10 minutes with you, you're going to find a way to tell them why you're happy in Jesus. Like you will, you will figure out a way to slip it in. I think that's awesome.

Shane (16:27)
sorry.

Laurie Kubicek (16:34)
Right? I was like...

Spence (16:39)
This has been great.

Shane (16:38)
Well, Laurie, this has been so helpful, so great. I'm so thankful that you answered the calling to be a professor. And so thankful you're there at Sacramento State. And yeah, do you have any other thoughts of advice for either college students who will be coming in or parents who care about their college students or even other professors?

Spence (16:50)
Mm-hmm. So true.

Laurie Kubicek (17:07)
Yeah, oh, okay. So college students coming in, from my own experience, I will say, I will say, never give up. I went to college, a well-prepared, strong Christian kid. I made a good handful of not great decisions in that season of my life. The Lord was not done with me. He was never done with me.

Spence (17:21)
Huh.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm. Amen to that. Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (17:36)
And so goodness to us when we're young adults and we're figuring it out and we blow it, we make mistakes, we think, okay, I knew better. And I did know, nobody knew better, right? I knew better. And so when you make bad decisions, don't make the next decision a bad decision, right? Like make the next decision a good decision.

Spence (17:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Laurie Kubicek (17:59)
I think for parents, pray over your children. Pray without ceasing. You cannot go with them as desperately as I would like to. I would love to just be there, continuing to shepherd Ty I have lots of good truth I could still share, but I have to trust the Lord that he's calling someone else to pour into my kid. And so now what I do is pray.

Spence (18:04)
Oh, good one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Shane (18:25)
Hmm.

Laurie Kubicek (18:28)
Constantly, and you talk to the Lord and you tell him that these children he entrusted you with.

Spence (18:29)
Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (18:34)
that you desperately want them to follow Jesus and you desperately want their roots of faith to be deep and not shallow. And you desperately want them to be the next generation of Christian leaders and just beg the Lord, right? Do that work in your children's lives. Obviously support them, encourage them. They do not need us to pressure them. They have plenty.

Spence (18:42)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Shane (18:53)
Mm.

Spence (18:56)
Hmm.

Laurie Kubicek (19:02)
Right? They have plenty of pressure, pressures everywhere. They like need us asking constantly. How did it go? What did you, you know, what are you doing? Are you doing this? But at the same time, they might need us to lovingly be available.

Shane (19:03)
Hmm.

Spence (19:05)
Oh, that's a great word. Yep. Yeah.

Shane (19:14)
Hmm.

Laurie Kubicek (19:20)
be our college students' biggest fans. Let's be the ones just going, man, my kid is amazing. You're crushing it. You're doing what God's called you to do. We're so proud of you. Let's just be those people at this stage of life. Matt and I talk all the time.

Shane (19:24)
Mm.

Spence (19:33)
Mm.

Shane (19:35)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Kubicek (19:39)
We, our deepest desire is that our kids in adulthood will like us enough to wanna hang out with us, right?

Spence (19:46)
That is true. True words have never been spoken. That's my goal.

Shane (19:50)
Hehehe

Laurie Kubicek (19:51)
Like, I'm just like, I'm like, I just want you guys to like us enough. Like people always ask us, are you gonna move if the kids, I'm like, we're going wherever the one who likes us the best lives.

Shane (20:01)
Hehe

Spence (20:02)
So there's a competition kids, there's a competition.

Laurie Kubicek (20:05)
I'm like, Ty  you want me to take care of your children? Then you better act like you like me because that's where we're going, right? So I'm... No, I...

Spence (20:11)
Yeah. Well, and don't move somewhere cold. If my kids are listening, that's my other thing is like somewhere warm kids. 

Shane (20:18)
Hehe

Laurie Kubicek (20:20)
We're somewhere good, right? So yeah, I mean, I think for parents, that's it. I think for Christian faculty, if there are faculty who watch this, if you hear anything, I hope you just hear me saying that my life is regular, right? I mean, I am married for 23 years to my husband, who I love, who occasionally I wanna kill.

Spence (20:39)
Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (20:44)
when you're in the tenure cycle, for those of you in the tenure cycle where you're just, you know, there's the pressure of tenure and promotion is like nothing.

professionally I have ever experienced. I have experienced great difficulty in my personal life, but in my professional experience, that season of working toward tenure and promotion is, it is a mind blowing exercise and it feels like you can't say no to anything. You feel like if you say no, you run a risk that someone's gonna notice and don't look like a hard worker and you don't look like a good colleague, you're not collegial.

Spence (21:03)
Mm-hmm.

Uh, yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (21:21)
You know, you're unhelpful. And so there's this, and it's like, for me, it was a six year to tenure cycle. So it's a long cycle. Everyone needs to think you're doing great work in the classroom and great, and you've got to be publishing and you've got to be grant writing and you've got to be doing all these things. You need to be visible. Are you getting news interviews? Are they calling you?

Shane (21:30)
Hmm.

Spence (21:38)
Mm.

Laurie Kubicek (21:41)
to talk to you on the news? Are they, you know, all of these things? And so for us as Christian faculty, I think, you know, keep the main thing the main thing. If we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and we say, okay, God, today, what am I gonna do today, right? What do you call me to today? I'm gonna steward my resources of time and talent wisely because I can squander my bandwidth if I'm not wise.

Spence (21:44)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Laurie Kubicek (22:11)
I can squander my talent. I can waste it on things that don't matter, right? And aren't gonna be helpful. I feel like one of the areas God was most faithful to me was helping me sort of work smart, not hard in that tenure era where it was like, okay, what projects mean the most? What matters the most? What in the calculation of promotion is the most important? Okay, Lord, help me keep my eye there.

Spence (22:12)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (22:40)
and help me not get distracted by things that aren't going to be helpful and aren't going to matter, So I feel like that season is like, it can feel isolating, it can feel super just exhausting, but I think keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. If he called you to the academy.

Shane (22:43)
Hmm.

Spence (22:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (23:00)
He, you know, my husband had a football coach who said, if it's his will, he's going to pay the bill, right? So like, if you're in God's will, if he called you there, he's not going to leave you bankrupt, right? He's not gonna leave you unable to do what he's called you to do. So trust him,

Shane (23:07)
Mm.

Hmm

Laurie Kubicek (23:19)
The academy needs you as a believer to stay in the classroom and to keep engaging students because it is such a privilege to be part of what God's doing on college campuses,

Spence (23:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (23:34)
and I know some faculty are afraid to speak out about their faith when they're not tenured. and trust the Lord to protect you, give you wisdom and discernment about how you talk about Jesus on your campus.

Spence (23:43)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Kubicek (23:46)
How do you live out your faith as an untenured faculty member? What can that look like? And pray for his protection over your very calling,

Spence (23:47)
Yeah.

Shane (23:55)
some of the people I admire the most. They are making new strides and then they're honest about, hey, we're normal. And I've stumbled along in all this process too. So, that's very helpful.

Spence (23:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I had somebody tell me one time that the art of life is learning how to fail well. And I, you know, completely secular quote, but I think about all the time I'm like, am I failing well right now? Well, let me work on that.

Laurie Kubicek (24:10)
For sure.

Yeah, amen.

Shane (24:17)
Hmm.

Spence (24:24)
let's do our quick lightning round. All right, and so these are designed for quick front of your mind answers, all right, you ready?

Shane (24:25)
Yeah, so...

Spencer, we're going to ask the same questions we have before or new ones.

Spence (24:35)
I guess new is because I don't remember the questions. So here, all right. All right. So here we go. All right. So, so would you rather have your car infested with cockroaches or spiders?

Shane (24:38)
I like it. I've got some new ones. Good.

Laurie Kubicek (24:41)
Okay, good.

Spence (24:48)
Haha, I got her cockroaches. You weren't happy right there. You were not happy luring. Alright cockroaches.

Laurie Kubicek (24:52)
Yes! No!

Shane (24:55)
There's no good answer to that question. Okay, so, Laurie, would you rather have the ability to fly or the ability to always tell when someone is lying to you?

Spence (24:57)
Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (25:06)
lying.

Spence (25:08)
Oh, as a lawyer, as a lawyer, that one would be good. Yeah. All right. So you get one food for the rest of your life. One, that's all you can eat. Apples or bananas?

Shane (25:08)
Really?

Laurie Kubicek (25:12)
I don't need to fly.

That's hard too. Um, apples.

Spence (25:23)
Ha ha!

Laurie Kubicek (25:26)
literally just had that conversation over dinner with my two littles. We were out at dinner and we asked them, what would you, if you could only have one kind of food the rest of your life, my daughter strategically said, "sandwiches". sandwiches because she was like, breakfast sandwiches, lunch sandwiches, ice cream sandwiches. My son said a NY

Spence (25:31)
Yeah.

Shane (25:39)
Hehehehe

Spence (25:40)
Oh, it's everything. Yeah.

Shane (25:48)
Laurie, my last question, mountains or beach?

Laurie Kubicek (25:52)
mountains.

Shane (25:53)
Ah!

Laurie Kubicek (25:55)
Mountains.

Spence (25:55)
Oh okay okay. We we can still be friends. It's okay yeah.

Shane (25:57)
Sorry, that's the wrong answer. The right answer is speech. Ha ha ha.

Laurie Kubicek (26:02)
Let's see, maybe it's because I'm spoiled and I can drive to the beach in an hour and a half. But see, we also live in that, we're about two hours either direction from San Francisco, you can get to the Bay, or we can go to Tahoe, and we love to go to Tahoe. And you get both, you get the beach at the lake, and then you get the mountains and the skiing and the beauty of the mountain. So I see, I always lean that way.

Spence (26:06)
Oh, that's true.

Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, Tahoe is great.

Shane (26:21)
Hmm.

Spence (26:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (26:32)
dude, if you take me, I mean, my favorite part, my favorite, one of my favorite parts of California, so I'll say my favorite part of Nevada is Lake Tahoe. So selfishly I can have that. My favorite part of California is the Monterey Bay. Like without question. Like that Monterey, the Monterey Peninsula. Hands down, I would take that beach, like that coastal area over all the beaches in Southern California all day.

Spence (26:42)
Okay. Yeah.

Shane (26:47)
Ah.

Spence (26:48)
Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Shane (27:02)
I see some pictures of Monterey Bay come up with my computer sometimes. The screensavers. Yeah.

Laurie Kubicek (27:05)
It's like the most stunning, like it is beautiful. It's not like go lay out on the beach beach. Like it's not Hawaii, you know, not go lay in the sand. It is gorgeous. The weather is always perfect. Like, oh, it's

Spence (27:06)
Yeah.

Yeah. Right, right.

Yeah.

Shane (27:21)
Laurie, thank you so much. This is great. I'm so grateful for you. I'm so grateful you're there at Sacrament of State. Thanks for sharing with us about your own relationship with Jesus and how you're following Jesus. And yeah, thank you for this time.

Laurie Kubicek (27:23)
Welcome.

Spence (27:24)
Great getting to know you.

Yeah.

Shane (27:36)
Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview and you can learn more as well as read about other Christian professors on our website, meettheprof.com. And you can search for professors by name or by state or even by college campus. And you can also find many helpful resources about questions that were in the interview and other ways of answering tough questions at Cru.org and that's Cru.org. And college students,

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