How do you get to Park Hall?
Practice pointed the way for Dr. Ronald A. Crutcher—professor, administrator, cellist and yes, Carnegie Hall veteran.
By Hannah Benoit
Ronald Crutcher knows the value of rising before the sun. It is a practice that has served him well and, in a sense, made him who he is today. As a ninth grader in his native Cincinnati in the early 1960s, he had only been playing the cello for a few months before he taught himself to play Bach's Suite No. 1 for Cello by studying a Pablo Casals performance on a film from the public library.
Liz Potteiger, a music professor and cellist at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, heard the boy play the piece in a competition. "She was astounded that I could play as well as I did, having had so little instruction," Crutcher recalls. "So she told my parents she would give me lessons free of charge if they would transport me to Oxford."
Every Saturday the young man had to rise at first light to catch the 7:20 a.m. bus to Oxford, 35 miles from home, for his daylong lessons. But those bus rides launched him on a lifelong journey.
Crutcher studied with the Miami professor for eight years, and in the process learned much more than mastery of the cello. "She was a Renaissance person," Crutcher says. "She knew a lot about many different things, but I also learned from her about university culture." He soon set his life's course: "I wanted to be in a university and play in a string quartet and teach."
He did all of that and more, forging parallel careers as a cellist, a professor of music and a university administrator. His journey took him around the world, but eventually led back to Miami University. He was serving as Miami's provost and executive vice president for academic affairs when Wheaton tapped him in March to lead the college as its seventh president. He begins his new post on July 15.
At 57, Crutcher still rises early, and therein lies a tale of success. "When I made the decision to become a full-time administrator in 1988, I decided that if I could not continue my art, which is my passion, which feeds my soul, it wasn't worth doing another job. So I had to find a way to make it work." How does he do it? By rising before 4:30 every morning to meditate, check e-mail, practice his cello and work out—all before his first cup of coffee.
This strict regimen keeps him centered and buffers him against the inevitable stresses of a college administrator's life. "It's important for me to have that mind/body/spirit balance in order to be as effective as I possibly can, to work at my maximum," he says. As a result, Crutcher has excelled as an artist, a teacher and a leader. In short, he is the embodiment of a liberally educated individual.
"He's a true scholar," says James Garland, president of Miami, a university with 15,000 undergraduates that is recognized as one of the nation's eight "public ivy" schools. "Anybody who talks to him for five minutes knows that he really reflects the finest of a liberal arts background. He's an intellectual in the best sense of the word. He keeps Goethe in the original German on his bedside table."
Trustee Thomas Hollister, chair of the Presidential Search Committee, said the committee "went across the country and across the globe" in its 10-month review of some 300 candidates, ultimately selecting Crutcher as "our best-qualified candidate, our number-one choice and our unanimous recommendation" to succeed President Dale Rogers Marshall, who will retire in June after 12 years of service.
Marshall's successor is a unique fit for Wheaton. "As an experienced chamber music player, he will bring consensus-building and cooperation to his administration," says Professor of Music Ann Sears, "and I know all the Wheaton faculty want to continue the community-oriented traditions that Dale Marshall has fostered."
Crutcher earned his bachelor's degree in music from Miami University, where he also studied German. He put his German to the test at the University of Bonn, studying on a prestigious Fulbright Fellowship, then went on to become the first cellist to earn a doctorate of musical arts from Yale. He is a founding member of the Klemperer Trio, which performs widely in this country and Europe and which celebrates its 25th anniversary next year. Crutcher held teaching and administrative appointments at Wittenberg University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the Cleveland Institute of Music before serving as the director of the School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin, one of the country's largest music schools. He has spent the last five years as Miami's provost.
Todd Pang '04, one of two student members on Wheaton's search committee, was drawn to Crutcher's track record as well as his personal qualities. "As president, he will be a successful campus leader because he is a great listener, perceptive, warm and engaging," Pang says. "He is proactive in initiating change and excited for the possibilities of the college's future." Committee vice-chair Deborah Haigh Dluhy '62 adds, "I sensed in him an individual who would not want any presidency just for the sake of being a college president, but someone who wanted to be sure he had found the right place for him, and for his family."
The eldest of three sons and a descendent of enslaved people, Ronald Crutcher was the first in his family to earn a college degree. His parents, who had grown up together in a small town in Kentucky, had high expectations for their boys. "My father didn't make much money, but T my parents provided everything that we needed. They saw to it that we took part in the children's theater, went to the Cincinnati Symphony, the opera. They both loved classical music—my mother in particular—and she wanted us to be exposed to that. My father was a ham radio operator, so we would listen to people all over the world, sitting around the radio. We didn't own a television for many, many years."
Crutcher's father was the first African-American middle manager at Cincinnati Milacron, a manufacturer of machine tools, where he worked for 43 years. "He's still working at 83, but at other work," says Crutcher. "He is the turnkey [caretaker] for Zion Baptist Church."
His father and mother were opposites—she contemplative and soft-spoken, he robust and outspoken. Both were strong role models for their children. "My father taught me how to be an independent thinker and not to be concerned about what other people think about me—to go right to what I believe in and speak to that. My mother taught me how to do that in a way that is thoughtful and reflective."
Family ties are important to the Crutchers. His mother's family traces its roots back to two groups of Kentucky slaves whose descendants have been getting together for reunions for more than a century. His father still lives in the house he bought 44 years ago, the house where he cared for his wife for eight years while she was battling cancer. "She was able to be at home until the day she died," says Crutcher with clear admiration for his father.
Crutcher took up the cello in the summer after the eighth grade, taking advantage of lessons offered by his junior high school. Because he tested with near-perfect pitch, the teacher let him choose any instrument he wanted. Crutcher selected the cello, partly because he was overweight and wanted to play sitting down, "kind of hidden" by the instrument. He soon fell in love with it. "I couldn't put it down," he says. "I mean, I played late hours.... My mother told me years later that sometimes she would actually leave the house because of the sound ... but I had no idea that was happening."
In 1980, Crutcher joined forces with violinist Erika Klemperer and her husband, pianist Gordon Back, to form the Jubilee Trio, later rechristened the Klemperer Trio. Five years later, Ronald Crutcher made his solo debut at Carnegie Hall. A former member of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, he has also performed as a tenor soloist with that orchestra—a role that harks back to his childhood days of singing in the choir at Zion Baptist Church. As an educator, he has taught courses in music literature, performance and appreciation, and he has conducted master classes around the country. He has also served on the boards and committees of more than two dozen organizations, including the Fulbright Association.
As a scholar, Crutcher has written about music education, chamber music and the importance of cultural diversity in the arts, also giving many presentations on these topics at national forums. He has a keen interest in the chamber music of African-American composers, a topic he addressed in the journal American String Teacher after performing in the 1990 Music Alive music festival in Atlanta—a showcase for the music of 11 living African-American composers. "The compositions performed as part of the Music Alive series are as different as the individuals who wrote them," he penned, noting that the pieces reflected Renaissance, Baroque and contemporary influences as well as culturally diverse themes, from Egyptian mythology to modern-day African-American experiences. The article decried the overall lack of "opportunities for African-American composers to try out their works in the live-performance arena" and issued a challenge to secondary school string teachers to introduce this repertoire to students and colleagues.
Crutcher has also written about the role of race in college admissions, drawing attention in several articles to the successful practices of Miami University, where "race is considered, but it is considered in context" with other factors. "Our commitment to diversity has made Miami a better place for all students—not just students of color," he wrote, citing the numbers to prove it. "Miami has the seventh highest graduation rate in the nation for major public universities.... And our graduation rate for African Americans is higher than at any other of the 13 public universities in Ohio."
Commitment and dedication are words that crop up often when people describe Ronald Crutcher. "And discipline!" says Erika Klemperer, who has known him since they were young teens, introduced to each other by Potteiger. "I've never seen anything like it.... And he has never stopped developing his artistic and spiritual sides. An avid reader, he never stops learning and growing. How many of us can say that?" Among his role models he counts Martin Luther King Jr. and King's spiritual mentor, Howard Thurman, a theologian and onetime dean of Boston University's Marsh Chapel. Cruncher's well-thumbed copy of Thurman's Meditations of the Heart "is falling apart," he says.
His dedication has reaped rewards in his administrative career as well. At Miami he spearheaded initiatives to strengthen the university's promotion and tenure standards and the rigor of its curriculum. His efforts also helped fortify the university-wide honors program by raising admissions standards and enriching the academic experience. And he was a campus leader around issues of diversity.
"He has clearly educated the entire community to the imperative of diversity," says Joseph Ural, Miami vice provost, who has worked closely with Crutcher. "He's done this through word and deed and has turned resolve into action and plans into results. Dr. Crutcher's successful push to expand both the program and facility dimensions of the Center for American and World Cultures has proved invaluable."
The center took shape after a series of racially motivated crimes in and around campus during the late 1990s. In one incident, a black student was beaten with a baseball bat by two white men from outside the university.
"It's a good example of how a really horrible experience can be turned around and produce something that's really positive," Crutcher says. Plans for a multicultural center were already underway, but Crutcher pushed for a more robust solution. He took a lead role in developing the ambitious concept for the Center for American and World Cultures, which has become the campus hub for the study of race, gender and ethnicity. The center houses interdepartmental programs such as women's studies and black world studies, and it sponsors cultural events and a distinguished lecture series. In April of this year, the university celebrated the grand opening of the center's magnificently renovated facility.
Search committee vice-chair Duly was drawn to Crutcher's leadership in this sphere. "As an African American, Dr. Crutcher struck me as someone who would be able to support Wheaton's commitment to diversity in an exceptional manner and would lead by example," she says. "I also thought that Ron Crutcher would embrace fully Wheaton's commitment to educating women and men to be partners, continuing Wheaton's special kind of co-education arising from its history as a women's college. As a man, he will doubtless help Wheaton's male students and alumni sense Wheaton's commitment to them as well."
Ronald Crutcher's voice takes on a special warmth when he speaks of his wife, Betty Neal Crutcher, and their daughter, Sara Elizabeth, a talented violinist and a sophomore at the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University.
Crutcher remembers the exact date in March 1979 when he met his future wife. Having just passed his doctoral finals, he decided to go visit an old friend in Detroit. The friend introduced him to Betty, and she and Crutcher went out on a date. "I knew that evening that that was the person I wanted to marry," he says. "Betty never meets a stranger. People are automatically attracted to her and tell her their life stories." And that was exactly what he did, with complete comfort. "I remember at the end of the evening thinking, wow!" The pair were married eight months later.
Betty Neal Crutcher received her bachelor's degree in sociology from Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) and a master's in public health administration from the University of Michigan. She has spent most of her working life in higher education as an assistant to college presidents, and is currently the coordinator for community outreach and education programs at Miami.
"I am delighted that Wheaton places its greatest emphasis on students' growth and achievement," says Betty Crutcher, who describes herself as "passionate about learning." After more than 30 years away from the classroom, she is returning to school as a Ph.D. student in an interdisciplinary program in educational leadership at Miami.
The Crutchers have visited New England many times, and Betty sees their move here as a natural transition. "The strong sense of community at Wheaton is something I cherish," she remarks. "Having lived and worked most of my years in colleges and universities in small towns, I feel as though I am experiencing a seamless adventure." She is eager to become an active member of this close-knit community. "I'd enjoy serving as a welcome ambassador for Wheaton's parents, families, alumni and friends. As a student pursuing my doctorate, I hope to serve as a role model for Wheaton's students. I'm looking forward to assisting Ron in his new role in any way that seems appropriate."
The strength of the Crutchers' partnership is evident to all who meet them, including Toni-Marie Montgomery, dean of the Northwestern University School of Music and a pianist who has performed with Crutcher. "I can vividly recall Ron's speaking in glowing and loving terms about his wife Betty," she says of her initial encounters with the man who has become one of her mentors.
"I later met Betty and saw the same sense of pride and caring in her comments about Ron. Over the past 14 years, I have continued to place Ron and Betty Crutcher at the top of my list of ideal married couples."
As the first in his family to go to college, Crutcher believes firmly in the power of education to transform lives. "I get excited about helping people maximize their potential," he says, "and there is so much potential at Wheaton. I'm surprised more people don't know about A it." One of his goals as president is to raise the national profile of the college, and he recognizes that building Wheaton's endowment—as well as its scholarship and capital resources—will be a major part of that. At Miami, he helped secure a $5 million gift from an alumnus to establish the Harry T. Wilks Institute for Ethical Leadership, and President Garland predicts he will make an excellent advocate for Wheaton. "His interpersonal skills are exceptional," Garland notes. "He's a very warm individual and people relate to him easily."
Wheaton alumna Diana Nagel Cusser '70 echoes this opinion. "He is one of the most gracious people I know," says Cusser, who with her husband, James, has served on the parents' council at Miami University for the past five years. "He has done a wonderful job at Miami. People are uniformly delighted with him."
Crutcher has warmed to Wheaton's community spirit, which was fully manifest in Cole Chapel on March 30, when hundreds of students, faculty, staff and alumnae/i gathered for his official introduction as incoming president. After the applause and cheering subsided, Crutcher spoke of the many qualities that had attracted him to the college: its collaborative culture, its emphasis on diverse cultural, ethnic and gender perspectives, and the interdisciplinary connections featured in the new curriculum. But it was the people of Wheaton, he said, that clinched it for him and his family.
"In the final analysis," he said, "it was our interaction with the search committee, and ultimately my experience with the entire community, that convinced us that we wanted to become a part of this wonderful place."
And you'd have to get up pretty early in the morning to top that.
