Exploring a World of Ideas
An interview with Deborah Haigh Dluhy '62,
chair of the Wheaton Board of Trustees
In May, Deborah Haigh Dluhy '62, Dean of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), Deputy Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and longtime trustee of Wheaton College, succeeded Pat King '63 as chair of Wheaton's Board of Trustees.
She brings a long list of Wheaton experiences to the table—student, alumna, faculty member, leadership volunteer and trustee since 1988—and a background in academia, including a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, a Ph.D. in fine arts from Harvard, board memberships and a distinguished career at the SMFA.
It will be the intangibles, however, that guide her in her current leadership position: A lifetime of respect for education, gratitude for the skills Wheaton encouraged in her, and an understanding of the challenges ahead for her alma mater.
You've had a long relationship to education—almost your entire life. Tell me about your interest in the professional world of education.
Education is something that I value as one of the truly constant builders for the betterment of humanity. I had parents and grandparents who valued education. My maternal grandparents were Swedish immigrants who entered the United States with only a grammar school education. My grandfather was a grower of ferns and self-taught, and my grandmother a homemaker. They had four daughters and saw that they all went to college. Two attended Wellesley, one Wheelock, and my mother went to Smith. In the 1920s and '30s, educating women was not necessarily at the top of everyone's "must do" list, but education clearly mattered to my grandparents. They believed that it would provide their daughters more options. As I was growing up, my mother made the point that being able to shape my life and stand on my own were extremely important objectives. Attending college and having a career were part of what I would need to do.
I have discovered that I love being in a place that is focused on learning and where people talk about ideas and engage in creative work. So I do it now selfishly because I enjoy the people with whom I work and the energy of students. I find it to be an exciting and stimulating place.
At Wheaton how did you acquire your own set of survival skills?
For me, Wheaton was an experience that offered an opportunity to grow intellectually, learn to trust my ideas, and become involved in scholarship. I'd gone to a rigorous secondary school in New Jersey, but my high school years were academically uneven for me. At that time my mother was going through a divorce and life was a bit distracting. The result: I underperformed. I was wait-listed at Smith—to my mother's chagrin. I decided to attend Wheaton. As it turned out, Wheaton was absolutely the right place for me, and the Wheaton experience strengthened me in every respect. Early on, I became very engaged with the study of art history; I worked closely with Professors Mary Heuser and Lucile Bush, who were interested in having me in the department. Throughout my studies I was mentored and encouraged by these faculty members. Wheaton was one of the first places where people told me "you're good at this." And there's nothing like a compliment to motivate a student to work hard and persist! I was pleased with the discovery that I was good at research, enjoyed it, and was considered an interesting and creative thinker.
Wheaton also gave me the chance to further my creative work in the arts through participation in the dance group. This involvement culminated my junior year when I headed the dance group, proposing a new format for our annual dance concert and performing the lead. At my suggestion, and with the participation of the music department, we adapted a play I had seen performed at the Salzburg summer festival, Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Jedermann, or Everyman.It made a powerful multi-act dance program-one that the college wanted to film as a promotional piece for the arts at Wheaton. Everyone in the dance group was very proud. I know that for me this production was something I looked back on many years later with tremendous pride and sense of accomplishment. For years, Holcombe Austin would talk to me about it and actually call me "Jedermann" whenever he saw me.
So Wheaton touched many aspects of who I am today. While I would say that my creative work in dance came more easily than my scholarly pursuits, largely because I'm a slow reader, I was able to develop both at Wheaton. It was a particular pleasure to discover how quickly I could absorb history, which I had not enjoyed before, through the visual arts. In contrast to the dense history textbooks of my high school classes, which tended to make for rather drab reading, the arts became a visual hook. Where I had struggled with dates and the recall of historical facts in high school, suddenly history was memorable—it became vivid, filled with creative work and a distinctly human dimension.
You've certainly had a strong lasting connection to the college over the years in many leadership positions. Why do you keep saying yes to Wheaton?
Because Wheaton was the springboard for all I would go on to do. Beyond college, Wheaton faculty supported me in my application to graduate school and nominated me for a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. Throughout graduate studies I realized how well the college had prepared me. Valuing what I had been given, I have tried, quite simply, to give back. Returning to Wheaton is always refreshing. And meeting other generations of Wheaton alumnae during my volunteer work for the college has brought me into contact with others whose comments about how Wheaton affected their lives were strikingly similar to my own. For many of us, Wheaton was a transforming experience.
Who are your inspirations for leadership?
I admired the people in college who held class offices and led student government, particularly those who did so without letting their egos get in the way. During my time in college, except for my work in dance, I "used" Wheaton; I wanted to work with the faculty and my colleagues in dance, but I did not seek any offices. Perhaps this is one reason that I now choose to give back.
I see myself more as a collaborator than a "leader." I enjoy the way in which collaborative work triggers ideas. That's often how I get my best ideas. I think I can get people excited about contributing to a shared agenda. I hope that I can. I would like to help the college in its many efforts to move forward and become better known. The education I received there was superb. For years the college was neither positioned where I thought it should be nor broadly recognized for the quality of its education. While I believe that it provides an excellent education that offers opportunities for students who seek a place where they can work closely with the faculty, it has been particularly important for people who, as I, emerged from high school able, but not fully developed academically or sure of their abilities, and could benefit from this kind of supportive environment.
That's a difficult message to send out there though.
It's a very hard message, but I think the college is now on that track. In the past, the college may have done less well in promoting some of the awards and accomplishments of its graduates, though many Wheaton graduates were emerging to go on to very successful lives and careers. Today, the college is seeing an impressive growth in the annual number of national, prestigious awards received by students; as well, Wheaton faculty and staff work closely with these students as they prepare for their future work and the college does a better job of promoting these academic successes. This kind of transformation has been happening over the years, and many of us experienced it, but the pace is clearly quickening today.
What do you see as the college's strengths and weaknesses today, and what are the things that we need to be working on?
I think that Wheaton's strength is in its wonderful core programming and the faculty-student interaction; the new curriculum is moving the college in timely new directions and I know that the faculty is very excited about it. One of the college's weaknesses—and a long-standing concern—is the size of its resource base. The college has been extraordinarily well managed, but operates with thin margins. We know that investment must be made in the built environment to give students the resources they need and to support the educational programs. The precise next steps will be shaped by the college through a strategic planning process and work with the trustees. I know that a new science facility is very high on the list. I think that we see the results of recent progress and investment in the college when we look at the arts at Wheaton today. With renovated and expanded facilities and generous support of programs, Wheaton's dynamic arts programming has been advanced, honored and showcased. This speaks to the momentum that has been achieved and that we want to continue to build on this and create an even better Wheaton College.
The obvious question is the funds; where do you see our next strides in fundraising?
The college, working with the Board of Trustees, will determine the next steps, so I do not want to put forward a personal opinion independent of that joint work. I would say that the college is positioned very well on the heels of its most recent, very successful, campaign to chart the next steps. The success the college has experienced during my time on the Board of Trustees has been impressive. I think that there will be universal enthusiasm for maintaining the current momentum. I believe also that alumnae/i feel that the college is moving forward in important directions, gaining critical attention, and that it is well managed and evolving in sound ways. Most alumnae/i with whom I meet see continuity with the Wheaton they knew — they see that the values that Wheaton embraced as a women's college—have been retained as Wheaton has evolved into the successful coeducational college it is today.
How do you think the Board of Trustees can help to build this excitement in alumnae/i?
The board can assist by being points of contact for and communicators to the alumnae/i. We want to be a board that is accessible. [President] Ronald Crutcher has been doing an excellent job of meeting with the alums during this first year, and Dale Rogers Marshall was enormously successful in her work with alumnae/i. Ron is picking up that important thread of Dale's work. He's invested in education, and I know that he cares a lot about Wheaton.
What's on your wish list for the college over the coming years?
Beyond the resource development?
Yes. It's your wish list. You can put anything you want on it.
I hope that alumnae/i will continue to offer Wheaton their generosity, and stretch in that respect. I would love to see participation in annual giving increase. This would send a critically important message as the college raises funds, especially when it seeks support from outside of its own constituency. I would like alumnae/i annual giving participation to jump 10 percentage points in the coming five years, dare I say, because that's a vote. It's a vote of confidence in the direction of the college and in what it stands for.
My wish list for Wheaton has been closely intertwined with that of the college. In my work as Alumnae/i Association president and now as a member of the Board of Trustees, I've listened to what the college leadership has established as the priorities for the college, and I've agreed with the direction that was charted. I want to make Wheaton a better known institution nationally and internationally, to see the diversity of the campus continue to build, and to fund global programs that provide students with enriching experiences to engage them in issues that will shape their future work as global citizens. We're educating our students to go out into a rapidly changing and challenging world so that they may contribute to it and help to make a difference for others. I think that's a very important goal and outcome of a Wheaton education.
