RST: Gordon, how do you have the stamina to travel so much? I start pretty much every text to you with “Where’s Waldo?” You’re in different state every day.
EGG: Initially all of the travel was because they kicked me out of the president’s residence. I thought that after 45 years I would always live in a 30,000-square-foot house. I decided to spend a year in hibernation by visiting other institutions and taking advantage of their largess.
RST: Well, you’re singing for your supper by providing leadership assistance and support to current presidents. Everyone I talk to has tucked away some pearl of wisdom they’ve heard from you over the last 100 years that they’ve remembered and used. I’m going to collect them and sell them on eBay.
EGG: I wish I would have taken a sabbatical during my tenure and visited a few of these remarkable campuses. I would have learned so much that would be helpful to my own institution. I am in awe of the good work being done by so many, particularly those under duress.
RST: That’s why I’m bossing you around asking you to talk to presidents who wouldn’t normally have your cell number. And why we’re getting invites to talk to presidents and boards. (Yes, my role will be to carry your luggage; I know my place.)
Which brings me to what I want to talk about: the pecking order. I find it, um, interesting that we academics, for our all rhetoric about diversity, equity and inclusion—values, by the way, Gordito, that I think are fundamental and essential—are also exceptionally aware of where we stand in the caste system of higher ed. Who we look up to and who we look down on. Elitism all the way.
EGG: Oh my. You have hit on the issue that exposes the ugly underbelly of higher education. And I am acutely aware that I am a skilled practitioner of the “pecking order.” It is built into the dynamics of the system. Constantly striving to be like someone or something else rather than seeking to be the best of you. The two-year institutions are trying to become four-year institutions, the four-years to become regional doctoral universities, and so it goes. Not necessarily striving for excellence but rather to acquire additional bells and whistles. And this pattern is often found in the privates, where it is more often about rankings. This grasping and scraping follows the same pattern with individual academics. Prestige over purpose is the coin of the realm.
RST: You and I have both slid down the ladder of prestige. When I was a young editor at Oxford University Press, a colleague at UNC Press who built an extraordinary list once taunted me by saying, “Rachel, you will never know how good an editor you really are until you come out here to the provinces.” I didn’t get it. Then I moved to Duke Press and saw how right he was. I once worked really hard on a book proposal with an author assuming he would publish it with me. We massaged it into great shape and then he took it to a press he thought was more prestigious. Ouch.
EGG: Ouch is right. There is a truth here, and that is that the bluer the blood, the more that you can draft off the name without necessarily having superior firepower.
RST: We both have degrees from Ivies. When I worked in admissions at Duke, I always said that where you go to college matters not at all and also a lot, but not in the ways most people think. You can get a great education anywhere. But highly selective admissions means you get to rub shoulders (or other body parts) with people who are, well, unlike you. And who may become your best friends and introduce you to different worlds. I know you want to tell your often-repeated story about your law school study group.
EGG: It is a tale. I went from Vernal, Utah, to Columbia not knowing a soul. And as with the protocol of the time, you would find people to study with, particularly in the first year. I quickly discovered that my rural Utah cachet was limited and, like the awkward kid trying to be chosen for an athletic team, I was ignored by all of these Ivy League graduates. So I went to the dean’s office and got the list of first-year students and solicited the few who were from places like Arkansas, Oregon and Iowa to become my study group. The net result is that the small-town guys ended up having many of those other students working for us.
RST: You went for the other hicks. The best part of that story is who they turned out to be. But no bragging and no name-dropping.
EGG: There is no substitute for grit and humility. The reality is that credentials are not the only pathway to success.
RST: But I also think we never get over the sense of being in or out of the “right” clubs. And most of us end up working for institutions that are less fancy than where we got our degrees. And we never stop aspiring to climb back up that ladder.
EGG: This is my kimono moment—
RST: —Gordon! Please stop talking about opening your bathrobe and flashing our readers. It’s gross unseemly.
EGG: That is an ugly picture if you want to characterize it that way—
RST: We use our words to paint images in readers’ mind, and no one needs an image of your 82-year-old bod. Or even my 64-year-old one. Next up: lessons on decorum.
EGG: I wanted to be a private university president, and indeed, I wanted to be in the Ivy League. And so I was at Brown. I had gotten to the top of the heap, where I quickly discovered there is a lot of wind at the pinnacle. Let me be clear—Brown is a world-class institution, but I quickly discovered that my striving had outstripped my comfort zone and theirs. Fit is critical for successful leadership. I had come from a big land-grant university of 65,000 students to a precious institution of 6,500. I was an antelope in a telephone booth and at that moment gained personal clarity: Be who you are and find that comfortable fit where your abilities match the moment. I did find that at Vanderbilt. But a coda about Brown: It was perhaps the place I learned the most about leadership and purpose. Go Bears!
RST: Nice political recovery, buddy. You went from Ohio State to Brown. How did you experience the pecking order?
EGG: Rachel, you are egging me on to tell these stories.
RST: Only if you can do it honestly and with self-implication.
EGG: I was a member of the AAU and had been since I started at the University of Colorado. As you know, the AAU is composed of both public and private institutions. But truthfully, the privates were the College of Cardinals and the publics were the provinces. I sat right by one of the most formidable academic leaders in this country for a period of time. I hardly dared say hello to her, and she certainly had no intent on acknowledging me. And it was the same with many of the private presidents. There clearly was a pecking order. And then I moved to Brown and at the same time became chairman of the board of the AAU. Suddenly I emerged from obscurity to become a player. That story is not told in irritation but represents the reality of higher education.
RST: Though maybe a little irritation, because, as I’ve discovered, you are actually human. But I think this plays out, too, in institutional ambition. Most leaders seem to think that if they only had more money, or reached R-1 or D1 or whatever, things would be great. Yes, it’s about rankings, but also something else. You were known as a builder. Bigger, faster, stronger. Why?
EGG: If there is one thing I would put out of its misery, it is U.S. News & Report. It has done more harm to higher education than the federal government. It has caused this ratcheting effect: Everyone wants to achieve higher rankings and reputation, so many institutions sell their souls to climb the ladder. This has caused a lot of institutions to abandon who they are to try to become what they are not. In my view, the highest aspiration of a university or college is to be the best that they can be. Following the leader abandons true aspirations for greatness.
RST: Bingo. Recently I had a spirited conversation with the former president of a very, very rich, fancy-pants liberal arts college. He kept saying that if they only had more money, they could be better. They could be, you know, Amherst. When I asked what was unique about his college, he had a great answer, and I wondered why that wasn’t enough.
EGG: There is no Nirvana. Having high aspirations is what all institutions should strive for. But what I have discovered is that naked ambition is insatiable. Once you get the fever, it is increasingly not satisfying, because fence jumping just shows that there is no green grass on the other side.
RST: I have complained about how so many of our institutions are like smoothies—there aren’t all that many that have truly distinct missions. Those that do? I love them. I like to say, “The Mormons are killing it,” because they know exactly who they are, who they serve and what their purpose is, as do other faith-based institutions. Same with super-technical schools like Kettering or the Colorado School of Mines. Same with the work colleges, like Berea or Paul Quinn. Same with the gaggle of the regional comprehensive presidents I’ve been introducing you to.
EGG: Yes, indeed. I just visited High Point University, which has created a remarkable educational experience of high quality for its students. President Qubein is an unusual leader. He came out of the private sector, so he really carried no academic baggage. But he also was not afraid to listen and learn. High Point has accelerated to a level of great value and recognition because the president and leadership had a clear strategy about how they could create a university by focusing on a few goals and driving toward them. The net result is they did not scramble to the top—they discovered their own mountain. This is the future: Strive for quality and differentiation based on the strengths and opportunities of that particular institution rather than some ephemeral pecking order.
RST: That is a great example of figuring out a niche. I love celebrating places that wave their freak flags (RIP, Hampshire) even when they’re not my cup of decaf hemp chia chai milkshake.
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