I first came into contact with Santo D. Marabella ten years ago, when he was teaching at Moravian University in Bethlehem, Pa.; and was about to publish his book The Practical Prof: Simple Lessons for Anyone Who Works. Frances Hesselbein provided a back cover endorsement for the book, and in her role as Editor-in-Chief of Leader to Leader recommended to me, as Managing Editor, that Santo should distill the message of the book for a bylined article. (Among other things, Frances, Santo, and I all shared Pennsylvania backgrounds.)
The result, which I enjoyed working on with Santo, was “Serving Our Employees And Volunteers: Teaching, Mentoring, And Spirit-Building In The Workplace,” published in our Fall 2014 issue. Santo and I have stayed in touch over the years, and I’ve long been fascinated by his multidisciplinary approach to life and work.
I’m grateful to Santo for answering my questions about his career, teaching, writing, his work in various facets of the arts, and more.
Within the past couple of years you moved from your longtime career as a full-time professor of management at Moravian University to professor emeritus. Can you explain more about this significant career transition and how it has been evolving in terms of your day-to-day life and work?
Toward the end of my tenure, my parents’ health challenges required more assistance and my care. As their only child, we had always been close, so I knew what I had to do. In June 2019, after a fall that left my Mom with a broken ankle, Raffi (my Flat-Coated Retriever) and I moved back home to the house I grew up in, and became their primary caregivers – Raffi, who was a therapy dog, helped, too! We were fortunate to also have a paid caregiver, an “angel” to our family, who continued to help them and me.
We talk so much about work-life balance and accommodations, but I don’t know how many people truly experience it with their employers. The University couldn’t have been more supportive. They gave me the flexibility I needed to continue fulfilling my responsibilities to both my parents and to our students. I was teaching, advising and meeting online before the pandemic (which became a big help during it!).
After my parents passed (neither from COVID, thankfully), I decided to stay in the family home. Mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted, it seemed the best time to make a change. I had always wanted to focus more on my writing – my newspaper column, plays and films. Retirement would give me that opportunity.
I retired from full-time teaching in December, 2021, and started teaching part-time online that spring. You can take the boy out of the classroom, but you can’t… I love teaching. It is the core of everything I do – directing film and theatre, speaking, training – I am and always will be a teacher.
At first, I was a bit nervous about what it meant to be retired. But, by fall 2022, I found my “groove” and was adjusting to having the choices to do what I wanted to do.
Now, a little more than two years later, I continue to teach and advise Moravian students, facilitate training seminars for the Greater Reading Chamber of Commerce, and develop my art. Since retirement, I wrote and directed a short film about caregiving, produced an art show for five local artists, produced two feature films by other filmmakers and co-produced and directed a workshop presentation of an original musical, along with continuing my newspaper column as The Practical Prof®.
With your teaching, writing, consulting, and more, you have certainly been an example of Peter Drucker’s concept of ‘living in more than one world.’ Can you provide a sense of how you have made all those things work simultaneously over the years, and how it may have changed in the past two years?
It’s an interesting question. Because of the journey I’m on, it’s a question I am currently asking myself. Indulge me in a little backstory. I was adopted by my Italian-American parents as an infant, but searched and found my biological family a few years after college. I am preparing a return trip to Italy this fall to reunite with my siblings there and introduce them to my U.S. friends who are family.
I have lived in gratitude my entire life for the blessings from my parents, Anna and Sam, who adopted me. Expressing that gratitude has manifested itself in many ways. I have deliberately, and sometimes not so deliberately, sought to exploit my gifts and apply them to as many different realms as possible. The more I do, the more grateful I am. From my education, writing and work in business, social work and the arts – I have dipped my toes in many waters.
It has frequently been a juggling act where balls have been dropped and burnout has been a place of temporary respite. In my more contemplative moments, the social worker in me suggests I’ve been over-compensating needlessly because everyone knows I am grateful, most importantly, my parents knew.
But that’s not the whole story. I also continue to live in “many worlds” because I am easily bored. I like the excitement of new challenges in new contexts. I love to learn, as much as I love to teach. And, the smorgasbord of opportunities I seek, though chaotic and messy at times, is a great way to learn and grow!
You have long been involved in various aspects of the arts, and have been active on educational, civic, and artistic boards. How has your work in these areas informed other parts of your life, and vice versa?
Giving back to make a difference has been yet another way to express my gratitude. I have founded or co-founded, chaired or served as the chief staff, consulted and trained many organizations since my student days at Villanova, during my career at Moravian and now in semi-retirement. In all of those experiences, two lessons continuously present themselves and inform my work and my life.
First is one that was originally articulated by a mentor when I struggled to declare a major as an undergrad. He told me that he knew I found fulfillment in my volunteer and community work. He said the best complement to that passion would be to study business, since all not-for-profit organizations are businesses.
That lesson was elaborated and reinforced, albeit in the reverse, by our esteemed Peter F. Drucker in his seminal article “What Business can Learn from Nonprofits,” in Harvard Business Review (July-August, 1989). I particularly appreciate and apply this statement: “The nonprofits are, of course, still dedicated to ‘doing good.’ But they also realize that good intentions are no substitute for organization and leadership, for accountability, performance, and results.”
The second lesson is from social work, which was the focus of my doctoral work. I saw that a strong foundation in both social work and ethical business practices would be the base I needed to be successful and fulfilled. I never intended to be a clinician, but I always valued the tenets of a profession that puts people at the center and “helps” them thrive by meeting them where they are. I cannot count how many times these principles have informed (and sometimes confronted) me as I work to support students, clients, trainees, and characters in the stories I write.