President Kathleen McCartney on a Decade at Smith – The Sophian
Jordan Ferdman Ella Langenthal
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When you began your tenure as president, what were your goals? How have they evolved?

When it was first announced that I was going to be the eleventh president, I was invited to campus while Carol Christ was president. There was an event in John M. Green, just like there was for Sarah, and I talked about college access and affordability. I think you might know (because I talk about it frequently) that I’m the first person in my family to go to college. My dad didn’t finish high school — he worked in a factory — and I’m just passionate about this. In order to have people like me on campus, it requires generous financial aid, so that was the one goal I came in knowing that I had. I think that the second goal I had was…when I was at Harvard as dean of the School of Education, we started a kind of innovation lab, and it was housed at the business school, and the business school took the lead on it but I was one of the founding directors. And I saw the power of that, even for my students in education who are interested in careers in nonprofit. They were busy entering business competitions and proposing nonprofits and so on. I wanted us to have an innovation lab, and that gave birth to the Jill Ker Conway Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. So those were the two things I knew I wanted to do.

I think it’s really important in the beginning to understand the culture and understand what people’s hopes and dreams are. I call my first year the listening tour. I really just listened to people. And then we started a strategic planning process. You can find that online. I think it’s called Lives of Distinction and Purpose. Most of the things that are in there, we’ve been very successful at doing.

What I did was I put out a call to students, faculty, and staff. Students wanted more concentrations. We have a couple of new ones. And they wanted some new majors. There were things that the faculty wanted to do. They wanted a design thinking lab. There were things that senior members of my team wanted to do, too, and things that over time I realized that I was interested in. We’ve tried to bring to life as many of those ideas as we possibly could.

I think my ideas have evolved over time. Right before the pandemic, in January of 2020, my senior team and I had a retreat here. We started saying, “okay, what do we want to do in the last four years of my presidency?” We want to be carbon neutral by 2030, so we need to get going. That probably means geothermal heating and cooling. We worked on that for a long time with the board of trustees and we talked about working to be a need-blind college, which we’re not quite yet but we’ve raised a lot of money for financial aid and talked about goals for equity and inclusion and so on.

We’ve kind of had two phases of strategic planning. The second phase we’d call “the seven big moves.” One was career development. You probably know we’re hiring a lot of people in career development and raising money; I think career development is a good example of an idea that evolved over time, mostly from listening to students. I think students also drove the increase in mental health. They were very clear that’s what they wanted, so there were several rounds of hiring there. They were equally clear about career development: that it took too long to get an appointment. They felt we could do better, and I agreed. We are already doing better and we’ll do better still.

In your experience, what makes Smith unique, and by extension, how is the role of the president defined by campus culture?

I was really thinking about this. It’s really hard to define a culture, right? When I came here, I was joking that I felt like an anthropologist trying to figure out the Smith culture.

A few things that I think were very clear to me was that absolutely everyone — the students, the staff, the faculty — was really passionate about their work. I think the students here are hard-working, actually, compared to some other campuses. The alums stay connected for life. There’s an alum from California who said to me, my first year here, that the smith experience is four years but the afterlife lasts forever. I think that’s true — the alums are incredibly engaged. Not every campus has the reunion structure that we have or, you know, the 200 Smith clubs across the globe. There’s one in Seoul, South Korea! I’ve been to Seoul twice, and 100 people or more show up to these events. People are passionate about it, the alums.

I think the campus is really part of what makes Smith unique. We live in a botanic garden by a river that we call a pond. I think it’s healthy to be immersed in nature. I think the campus kind of grounds us.

The other thing I want to say that I knew when I came was that I think Smith really encourages activism. It is one of the reasons I wanted to be here. Not all college campuses are as engaged in making the world a better place as Smith students, staff and faculty. It’s just kind of in the Smith DNA. It’s something I have been proud to be a part of.

What have you seen change the most since you came to Smith? How have you changed over your tenure as president?

There have been so many changes. The curriculum: the faculty members here are incredible. New majors, like data sciences. That’s new in the last ten years. And we already talked about the journalism concentration. New centers. Like the Jill Kerr Conway Center. We really grew the Wuertele Center. It has a larger mandate now as a center on leadership.

The campus has changed. You wouldn’t know this, but the garden next to my house is new. There used to be a garden with walls around it and a fence, rather. The fence was coming down, so the head of the gardens came to see me and he said, “we’re going to put a new fence up, I just wanted to let you know.” And I said, “well, can’t we just take it down and put some benches so everyone can enjoy it? It seems silly to have a garden that’s just for the president.” He said, “are you really open to sharing that space?” And I said yes. He said, “well, then, can I come back tomorrow? I have a plan.” And he had a plan for that garden. I said, “let me see if I can fundraise for it,” and I did. I think it’s spectacular.

The Japanese garden, we did a renovation of during my time here. People in Buddhist studies came to see me and said, “it needs a makeover.” We did that.

We’ve talked about new buildings, but the Schchat Center, the Freedman apartments, the Alumnae House renovation. All of these happened during the last ten years, and I think have made the campus different.

Of course, the people. There are new faculty with new ideas about the curriculum and new students. Every four years there’s a complete turnover, and students care about different things. That makes it interesting. There’s always new priorities, and there should be. You want a college to continue to get better.

Me? I’ve been thinking about that. I know so much more about this job than I did in the first year. The learning curve was steep, although being a Harvard dean was pretty good preparation because Harvard is so decentralized. I had my own library and finance team and development team and so on. Still, it was a big leap, I think. I hope I’m a better listener. I think listening is really just the key. I think I got better at crisis management. The small crisis and of course the larger ones. I think I got better at handling them. Hope so!

I don’t know, I think one of the things that I really appreciated is that when people are upset and they come to see me, sometimes they trust me with what they’re upset about, and lots of times I’ve been able to make changes. I’ll give you just a few student examples. The Ada Comstock scholars wanted to be able to eat in the dining halls with the traditional students because they felt like a lot happened there. They got a food and housing stipend, but they were so convincing, and I worked with the Dean of the College to find the funding, and we made that happen.

Or the students who have celiac disease came to see me and they wanted a gluten-free dining room. My husband has celiac disease, so before they even started to make their case, I knew I was going to find a way to do that. Sometimes people are upset when they come to see me, and it’s not that I enjoy people being upset, but I enjoy helping to be part of the solution. That’s been a very gratifying part of the job: making people’s dreams come true.

I’ll tell you one story that I’m sure I’m going to share a lot. One summer, I got an email from a student at a local middle school. Ruby Bridges was her hero. She wanted to bring her to her school, but it was going to cost too much money. She said, “I think you might be able to help me.” I read this letter and I thought, “I really could.”

I had this Presidential Colloquium series, and we invited Ruby Bridges. We filled John M. Green on a Friday afternoon — that’s when Ruby could come — and I swear, half of the room was middle school kids and the other half was Smith kids. It was one of the most presidential colloquiums we have ever had. It was just spectacular to see middle schoolers get up to the microphone and ask Ruby Bridges a question.

Sometimes, presidents get to be the granter of wishes, which is really fun. I’ve tried my best, and that feels really good. And I’m going to try to savor the last ten weeks or whatever it is. I’m going to try to savor every single second.

Presidents don’t do anything alone. The best definition of leadership I ever came across was from a colleague of mine at the Ed school. She said, “Leaders provide the conditions for people to do their best work.” I think that’s right. You want to just create the conditions so everyone feels empowered and you bring as many ideas to life as you can. And some ideas don’t even cost a lot of money! Some just require rethinking. But a lot of the best ideas require money, like financial aid and geothermal.

You’d have no reason to know this, but I spent a significant amount of time fundraising. Maybe 30%, something like that, if you count it all up. The trips and the meetings and now I’m Zooming with alums. We’ll have a final count soon, but the development team and I have raised over $700 million over the last ten years. We’ve averaged $70 million dollars a year, which is really a lot for a small liberal arts college. That takes teamwork.

What is your proudest achievement as President?

It’s easy: last year when we eliminated loans from our financial aid packages. That initiative is costing the college $7 million a year. We self-funded it. Our endowment grew. I talked to the Board chair, and we put a working group together. That working group agreed that this would be the best thing to do.

After that vote, the trustees (and I am a trustee) spontaneously stood up and started applauding. People had tears. We just couldn’t stop talking about the fact that we knew that we were changing lives for the better that day. Our students are going to graduate with no debt. If you read the newspapers, there are so many stories about students being overwhelmed by how much debt they’ve had to take on. That’s just not going to be the case here. I think it’s going to encourage students like me, who come from families with fewer economic resources, to apply to Smith.

Our applications are up 122% in the last ten years. We’ve been really working hard on getting the message out that we invest in our students. It’s more than double, I can hardly believe it. That’s a point of pride too.

What are your post-Smith plans? Do you feel a connection to the class of ‘23 as you are sort of “graduating” with them?

I’m working with a coach right now, and one of the things he suggested is to take time to figure it out rather than jumping too fast. I don’t want another full-time job, but I’m sure I’ll do some writing about higher education as I have all along. I’m sure I’ll get involved in some nonprofits on a volunteer basis. I also want to take some time for myself which has been in short supply for the last ten years. Bill bought me a fancy new camera. I want to spend some time on photography, which I used to do.

I’m very excited about spending more time with my grandchildren. Even on March break, I found myself taking one of them to gymnastics classes because my daughter didn’t have anyone to do it. I was thinking that there will be more of these special moments with them, watching them play sports but also babysitting for them and just plain-old hanging out.

The eight-year-old was born on Rally Day my second year here. She visited recently and went to a basketball game and visited the library, which she really loved. She wanted to go back to the library and read there. She said to me, “I don’t want you to retire.” I said, “Why don’t you want me to retire? I’ll see you all the time!” And she said, “because I want to come to Smith and I want you to be the President when I come.” I hope she does come to Smith. That would make me really happy.

I do feel a special connection to the Class of 2023. And I think they might as well, or they at least know this is a special year for me. I’ve been invited to many events this year. Like tomorrow, I’m having tea at Chase House. I had tea at another house on the quad. They’re seeking me out: Can you come to this? Can you come to that? I’m going to as many things as I can.

I thought really long and hard about my last Ivy Day dress. I thought about the fact that I’m about to experience a big transition and they’re about to experience a big transition. They’re different transitions, but there are lessons in common for them and for me. That’s what I’m going to write about. I’m excited to give my last Ivy Day address.

What words of wisdom would you share with incoming President Sarah Willie-LeBreton?

Well, your first question was about words of wisdom for Sarah, and I was asked to write a chapter for The College President’s Handbook a while back. I had five pieces of advice — not just for Sarah, but really for anybody starting out — the first piece of advice was to always be mindful that leaders set the tone for an institution. People look to you, especially during difficult times like a pandemic. I think it’s important to be optimistic and open. That’s the first lesson I learned. I met with the Dean of the Kennedy School at Harvard who told me, “Just smile all the time.” That’s really what he meant.

The second lesson I’ve learned is to really trust myself. I think one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made is when I let people talk me into doing things. If I’m going to make a mistake, I’d rather make my mistake rather than somebody else’s mistake.

The third piece of advice is to remember that time is your most precious resource. Manage your time well. There will be so many requests for Sarah’s time. And she has to figure out what she has time to do. All presidents need to preserve time to think and reflect. Some of the days are….a lot of the days are 12-hour days.

The fourth would be building a good team, but hopefully I’ve done that for her. [Laughter] There’s always turnover and making good decisions in searches is just critical to your success.

The last thing is to really try to cultivate equanimity. You’ve gotta accept the good and the bad. Every single problem that happens on this campus finds its way to me. There’s lots of problems to deal with and lots of crises I’ve had to manage through. Trying to learn how to be calm — especially when people are angry. When people are angry about something Smith is or isn’t doing, being able to listen well and be a calming presence is, I think, really important for them and for me.

What do you think incoming President Sarah Willie-LeBreton should prioritize in her first year at Smith?

I think that’s for her to decide, but I’ll be here for her, and she knows that. I’m only a phone call away, and Carole Christ was only a phone call away for me too.

There are some things we’ve started under my tenure that I know she’ll finish, like raising enough money to be a need-blind school. There are a lot of priorities that I had that I know she has too. We’ve talked about that, so that makes me really happy. She’s going to have a great time.

What would you like your legacy to be on Smith? Do you think you have achieved this?

I thought about saying, “Others can figure that out.” So much has happened. Let me step back.

When you’re a president, you don’t do anything alone. You do it with your senior team. You work with the faculty, you work with the board of trustees. I’ll tell you some things I was proud to be a part of.

The first thing was really about supporting students. Not just financial aid but also equalizing the student experience. Since I’ve been here, we’ve eliminated fees for music classes, art classes, and I think even some science classes had lab fees and so on. I like this phrase: “equalizing the student experiences.” It comes from Anthony Jack, a professor at the Yale School. I’m really proud of the money we’ve raised for financial aid. My largest gifts have been for financial aid. There was the $50 million dollar gift, there have been several $10 million dollar gifts, and so one of the things I get to do when I meet with alumnae is let them know what my priorities are. The alumnae have been extremely generous.

I think the second thing I would say is expanding our work in equity and inclusion. What journalists refer to as the “racial reckoning” really started in my first and second year, and I think students really wanted us to do more. At that time, I would say most liberal arts colleges had one person in charge of DEI work. We had LaTonya in multicultural affairs and an assistant director. And we had one person, not even a Vice President, who worked in college hall. We greatly expanded our team. Floyd Cheung is a VP, and I think we have five other full-time people working there. Floyd tells me we’ve made a greater investment in DEI than our peers. We need people to get the work done.

Everyone from the physics department to the art museum is working on a racial justice action plan. Floyd gets most of the credit for that, but I’m really proud that we expanded our work there.

I’m so excited that we’ll be carbon neutral by 2030. There will only be a handful of colleges that are, and hopefully the work we’re doing will inspire other colleges. It’s really going to happen, and there are a lot of people who worked on the proposal, including trustees, and ultimately that project is more than $200 million dollars. That requires a vote of the board of trustees, so I’m very grateful for their partnership.

The last one is the library. When I first came here, I couldn’t have imagined that a building project would be so exciting. I’ve always been someone who likes to build programs on the ground for students whether they’re degree programs or centers or extracurricular things. The library really is the intellectual heart of the campus. So many people have told me how that space has enriched their lives. Nobody liked going to Neilson before. It was all dark and didn’t beckon you to study there. This space does, and there are so many different kinds of spaces. […..] It’s a work of art as well as a functional library. I’m very proud of that too.

I’ll tell you one more thing. I’m really proud that we were able to raise $10 million dollars for the poetry center. That means that if there’s ever a tough economic time, the poetry center will be protected with this wonderful $10 million dollar endowment that will fund a full-time poet who’s coming next year. They have core funding to expand their work. I think the poetry center is one of the things that makes Smith very special. Most campuses don’t have one. We’ve, since I’ve been here, have brought in some of the best poets in the country like Tracy K. Smith and Ross Gay. Poetry readings that were incredible.

What will you take with you from your time at Smith?

It’s hard to describe ten years. I think that there are some meetings. My team met here the night before we decided to send students home because of the pandemic. That really stands out. We knew we were making a big decision with very little data. We talked and talk and decided to sleep on it and the next morning made the decision to send the students home. We didn’t know how long: maybe a couple of weeks, right? That was the right decision, and we were one of the first colleges to make it.

There are some decision moments that stand out, but also really happy memories. Every single Mountain Day. On Mountain Day, I always get emails from alums saying, “I’m crying in front of my computer!” This year it occurred to me that next year, I’ll probably be crying in front of my computer knowing I’m not on campus.

I remember during my inauguration my first year, I got a note from students on the quad saying they wanted to meet me here and walk with me to the ITT. Someone on my team said, “I’ll tell them no.” I said, “No, I want to walk with them!” They were like, bagpipes and a huge crowd. And I could see some of my Harvard friends running around, and it was so emotional. If you ever are near my office, someone snapped a picture of Bill and me where we’re kind of looking at each other with awe, like oh my god. This is a moment.

I’ve been thinking about this anyway, what will stay with me. So many student performances. The plays, like Fun Home. And the dance recital. Vespers. A lot of student performances.

I’ve had some very poignant conversations with students during office hours where they’re really confiding in me and asking for advice.

Cheering the Pioneers, especially the basketball team this year. That was so joyful.

I have so many memories, but even the crises like the pandemic. When there’s a crisis and you’re responsible, there’s a way in which even though the work is hard, it just feels meaningful and important. In fact, my daughters think I’m going to miss the crises the most and are teasing me about that. Those are just important moments in a presidency to get it right.