170. Don Graham and Dr. Abel Antonio Chávez on Journalism, Our Lady of the Lake, and Why Access to Education Changes Everything
This week on bigcitysmalltown, Bob Rivard sits down with two guests at the podcast studio at Our Lady of the Lake University — a first for the show. Don Graham is the retired chairman and publisher of The Washington Post Company, whose family also owned Newsweek Magazine, where Bob worked as a war correspondent and later chief of correspondents in the 1990s. Dr. Abel Antonio Chávez is the 10th president of Our Lady of the Lake University, a position he has held since July 2022. A first-generation, first-in-family college graduate and son of immigrants, he went from Front Range Community College to a BS in mechanical engineering, an MBA, and a PhD in civil and environmental engineering, and built a career partnering with local governments and universities across the globe on community-based energy and emissions accounting.
Graham came to campus as a commencement speaker. The visit grew out of his decades-long commitment to college access — work rooted in Washington, DC, where the city's lack of a state university system means students pay out-of-state tuition everywhere they apply.
They discuss:
- How Our Lady of the Lake has served San Antonio's most economically challenged students for 130 years — and what it takes to sustain that mission today
- Dr. Chávez's path from a Denver neighborhood to a top engineering school he couldn't afford, a pivot to community college, and eventually the presidency of a university in a neighborhood that looks just like the one he grew up in
- How Don Graham's time as a beat cop in Washington, DC after Vietnam shaped his understanding of what college access actually means
- The federal scholarship program Graham helped push through a unanimous Republican Congress in 1998 to help DC students afford college
- What Graham witnessed as an early Facebook board member — and what it taught him about giving young people real responsibility
- The sale of The Washington Post to Jeff Bezos in 2013, why it happened, and what Graham thinks of the paper today
- San Antonio's deep economic and cultural ties to Mexico — and how tariffs are affecting the local auto manufacturing economy
- What it means to be an optimist about American democracy after decades at the center of Washington life
RECOMMENDED NEXT LISTEN:
▶ 149. How AlamoPROMISE Continues Expanding College Access for San Antonians — Stephanie Vasquez, Chief Program Officer for Alamo Promise, on what it takes to make college accessible to every Bexar County high school graduate — and what the program has learned from serving more than 30,000 Promise scholars.
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