'Thrive in a world that appears to be falling apart'
Incoming President Ronald A. Crutcher speaks to Quarterly editor Jayne M. Iafrate about the challenges facing higher education and today's young scholars.
Photography by Nicki Pardo
When you were on campus in February, you anonymously spoke to students around campus. What did you learn?
Well, I learned that the students here feel that they get a lot of support from the faculty and staff, that they are getting a top quality education, that they really have a lot of respect for the quality of the faculty and staff here. I also learned that the social life is not great for students; there's not as much to do as they would like on the weekends. Many of them wished that this could be more of a destination, that their friends from Amherst or Smith or wherever would want to come here as much as they go there. I also spent some time with a first-year African-American student from the East—an athlete who was not having such a great experience here. He told me that this was his back-up school.... He was really saying, "I don't know if I'm going to stay here; I'm probably going to transfer." His concern was that he felt he had to spend too much of his time trying to educate some of his white colleagues about what it was like to be African American.
Unfortunately, that's not the first time that I've heard that complaint; it's frustrating.
I will tell you that Betty [Crutcher] and I also had heard similar concerns, even before that date. During the Thanksgiving break, shortly after I had my first interview, we just happened to be in the home of some friends, whose daughter—unbeknownst to us—had gone to Wheaton for two years. She had a friend visiting her who had graduated from Wheaton. Both are African American. The young woman who graduated from Wheaton said some of the same things as the young man, except she mentioned that despite the experience she got a great education and she wouldn't have gone anywhere else. She said that the professors were incredibly supportive; any time she had an idea, something she wanted to do, she felt that she had the support to do it. She only wished the college could find a way to recruit more economically diverse students of color. So that was an interesting perspective, too.
Miami University has spent a lot of time recently discussing diversity and how to attract and retain students of color. That has been an ongoing issue for Wheaton. Why do you believe top colleges around the country are having difficulty attracting and retaining these students?
There are myriad reasons. Let's talk about attracting multicultural students first. One of the problems is that the top colleges are competing with a lot of other institutions for multicultural students, including state universities, but most importantly—at least for black students—historically black colleges and universities (HBCU). Hampton and Howard Universities have large numbers of the top-performing multicultural students in the country. They spend a lot of money recruiting top students, and a lot of black parents who live in predominantly white suburbs want to send their children to an HBCU because they perceive that they will be in a nurturing and supportive environment. My daughter has since the eighth grade wanted to go to Hampton University; she wanted to go to a place where she was not in the minority, which I thought was very interesting. She is currently a sophomore at Hampton in the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications.
I can tell you from my reading of it, I think Wheaton has a similar challenge as Miami and many other great schools have. Even though Wheaton is competing with some of the best liberal arts colleges in attracting multicultural students to apply here, when it comes to putting together a scholarship package, it is probably difficult for Wheaton to compete. I know this is the case at Miami. Our average SAT/ACT scores have been going up over time, but have increased dramatically in the past five years. However, the multicultural students with the highest credentials are getting full scholarships at other institutions that are as equally well known as Miami or Wheaton—if not better. And we can't offer that. We can do it for some multicultural students, but not for the critical mass that you need in order to have an impact.
And how about retention?
With respect to retention there are myriad issues there, too. For instance, our friend's daughter who felt as though she didn't quite fit with African Americans who were here, and she wanted to because that's how she was raised. That's an issue at Miami and many other fine schools, too. The general issue of how to deal with being in a fishbowl can also be problematic. Some multicultural students deal with that better than others.
Then you have the students who don't take advantage of the support that's there for them simply because they're determined to make it on their own. This is a real problem in the multicultural community, particularly among African American and Hispanic students. That is to say, rather than studying together in a group to kind of shore each other up, they often are determined to make it on their own, and study and prepare for school in isolation. This may be fine for a few students, but most students benefit in some way from group study.
Some students do very well and suddenly they experience a racial incident. This is particularly difficult for students who have grown up in fairly integrated circumstances and who have not ever had to face racism before. If some students don't identify on campus some type of surrogate home, they find it very difficult to remain. They need that "home," that sense of community.
One of the programs that you initiated at the University of Texas required all chamber music students to do community service, to go out in the community and perform or explain the mechanics of their field.
The purpose for that program in music was connecting with and giving back to the community. Often performing musicians spend so much time honing their skills and focusing on learning technique and repertoire that they forget why it is that they are doing it. Yes, it's fulfilling, but art is there for people. When students have to interact with people in a nursing home or school or hospital, they can learn useful life skills—just knowing how to approach a person in a nursing home, for instance, or to approach a person who is dying. In Cleveland we had a program whereby our students played music for cancer patients who were dying. Dr. Deforia Lane, the music therapist for the Ireland Cancer Center, actually taught students how to approach a patient. For instance, she said you don't go in and say, "I'm here to play music for you." You go in and ask, "Would you like to have some music today?" because on some days they will want it and some days they won't have enough energy.
What do you think are some of the most pressing issues facing young students today, not only at Wheaton or Miami, but nationwide?
Well, the most pressing issue is how to live and thrive in a world that appears to be falling apart. I think there are a lot of fears around that. Students are being told by their parents they need to get out there and get a job, and yet many of them—because they are concerned about the state of affairs in the world—want to make a difference. That doesn't always mean they are not necessarily focused on career aspirations.
I'm always fascinated by the students who figure out a way to bring this all together and who, despite their parents' complaints, are not really concerned. They are focusing on how to learn to be an independent thinker, to hone the skills that they need to be a lifelong learner, but also make a difference in the world. It's complex and perplexing. It is hard to get a job; you don't have the kind of job security that was common 20 or 30 years ago when you could go to work at one company until you retired. I think that the complexity of these world problems is extremely unsettling to students.
How can we help students better understand the ways that they can help in the world and nurture that impulse even in students who previously may not have felt that pull?
I think that freshmen seminars can be a good avenue. I am one who believes very much in setting the tone for students in their first year because that can have an impact on their behavior. It's very easy in almost any kind of a freshman seminar to test the waters by introducing material that will deal with the plight of people in the world, and you can engage them in a conversation. For instance, in a freshman seminar about the arts world, I used to ask a question: What percentage of Americans do you think spend money on arts events? At that time it was 2 percent. In one of the seminars I had, students started guessing at 50 percent, and when I told them it was 2 percent, their eyes got big. Then I asked them what they were going to do about it. After all, they weren't happy that 2 percent of Americans spend their money on what they basically were toiling to hone their skills at. It's those kinds of challenges you can engage them in. That's what I use as a backdrop for getting them out in the community and for them to understand that they have to become their own advocates for art. And I would say the same thing in general about liberal learning, that we have to become our own advocates for that. Liberal education itself has taken a hit. In Ohio after the state-of-the-state address, the speaker of the house, I think, said that we have too many of these liberal arts institutions, that we need institutions that provide job skills for students so that we have people in the workforce.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney recently proposed a similar plan for state colleges here.
Individuals going into the workplace these days are going to have five to seven, maybe 10 disparate professions, some of which don't even exist. So, how can you narrowly train somebody or educate someone for something that doesn't even exist. At best you can educate them to think critically and write well, so they can then have the ability to go from one profession to the other. As I say to students all the time, if you are in a job and suddenly your supervisor decides he wants you to do something different, he's going to show you the door if you don't adapt.
What do you think the skill set is for the college president today?
I think you have to, at some level, love to be around people and to interact with people. I'm a person who believes in building community. I'm a chamber music person. I believe in collaborative work. I also have learned in my life—again, a lesson from my wife—that in the position of president, you can't expect people to always come up and say hello to you. You have to reach out to them because often times people will assume—Wheaton may be different in terms of the community—that you are not going to speak to them or you are too high up for them or whatever. Once, when we returned to my church in Cincinnati, I remember asking my wife, "Why are people surprised that I remember who they are? Of course I remember who they are." She said, "It's not that they are surprised. They are surprised that you go out of your way to say hello to them because they assume that now you have gone away, been to Europe, gotten your doctorate, etc., that you are too highfalutin for them."
That was a really good lesson because what that said to me is that I had to be the initiator. That's why whenever I go to a dining hall to eat I always engage in a conversation with the people who work behind the counters. I know them. I think for a president to be able to do that is crucial because it makes it possible for you to connect with all levels of the college-not only your senior staff, administrators and faculty and students, but also the groundskeepers, the housekeepers, the cooks, the kitchen help. This is one part of my philosophy. In any organization people at all levels have to know that they are making an important contribution to the greater good, no matter their task.
I think that a president has to have a nice balance of the analytical and the affective, both sides. Like it or not, colleges do have important business functions and you have to be attuned to those business functions. On the other hand, you have to have the affective, too, because that's where the creativity, the joy of interacting with folks, engaging intellectually with people comes in. You have to have a lot of energy, and you have to learn ways to conserve your energy.
That would be tough. You get up between 4 and 4:30 a.m. to practice.
I'm an early morning person. It's important for me every day to feel a sense of anticipation about the day to come. And that's the way I feel each day when I walk up the steps to my office. I can't wait to get upstairs. You never know what's going to face you in the day, and that's what I love about these kinds of leadership positions.
Looking way down the road when you leave Wheaton—what would you like your legacy to be here?
That's a very good question. I became a full-time administrator primarily because I wanted to serve, so my motivation is to help make the institution or the department or whatever it is better. And so when I leave here I would like to see an endowment that is commensurate with the quality of the institution that Wheaton College is. I would like to see a physical plant that has the kinds of facilities that would make this college competitive with the No. 1 liberal arts college in the country—state-of-the-art science facilities, state-of-the-art fitness center. We have already a wonderful, I think, deferred maintenance plan. Fiscal management of this place has been really superb. That was one of the attractions, quite frankly. I came here because I wanted to help make Wheaton one of the very top liberal arts colleges in the country.
There has to be a substructure to build on.
Exactly. When I leave here I would want it to be said in the households of the high school students who were thinking about going to a top-rated liberal arts college that Wheaton was one of their top choices. They automatically think of Wheaton College, even if it ends up it's not the right fit for them, but that it's automatically on their list. And that's doable. I wouldn't have come here if I didn't think that was doable.
