A Conversation with President Michael S. Roth ’78 - AOC Newsletter Issue 13 [Wesleyan University]

Issue 13 · Winter 2008
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A Progressive Mind A Conversation with President Michael S. Roth ’78

by Faraneh Carnegie ’05

Michael S. Roth ’78. I had the privilege of meeting with our new president, Michael Roth ’78, during his first week on campus. Despite the barrage of student requests, meetings with faculty and senior staff, and the pressures of settling in his family—wife Kari, daughter Sophie, and golden lab, Madeleine—President Roth came to our conversation relaxed, focused, and brimming with a palpable energy. He engaged me immediately in a discussion about the background and evolution of the Alumni of Color Network and was eager to share his goals for Wesleyan and his thoughts on supporting the student of color community and engaging alumni of color.

Interview

During your seven-year tenure you managed to completely transform the environment, mission, and name of California College of the Arts (CCA) while still preserving the integrity of the institution. Can we look forward to a similar transformation during your presidency at Wesleyan?

Michael Roth: While I certainly don’t have any plans to change Wesleyan’s name, I’ll approach my presidency here in a similar manner. When I got to CCA, I spent a lot of time talking to people who knew the institution well to get a sense of the cultural DNA. Though I knew Wesleyan 30 years ago, it was at a very particular time in Wesleyan’s history. I’d like to try and get to know Wesleyan again. I’d like to understand how Wesleyan has endured over time, and what are the key aspects of Wesleyan’s culture that persist despite other changes in Wesleyan’s generations of students and faculty. This past spring and summer I spent a lot of time meeting with alumni and parents and I look forward to continuing these conversations in my first year.

Wesleyan’s mission—to be a force for progressive liberal arts education both nationally and internationally, to give its students the highest level of teaching and scholarship so that they can continue to lead productive and meaningful lives after graduation and be open to new experiences, ideas, and people by virtue of the transformative encounters they had on campus —is a mission that does not need revision. I’d like to focus my attention on the ways in which this mission is communicated to our public. Wesleyan is often perceived by the broader public in ways not consistent with its culture. I think that there is some work to be done in communicating effectively what we stand for and how we stand for it.

“I think that the discussion about what it means for Wesleyan to be a progressive institution today is one that would really benefit from the participation of alumni of color.”

Are there specific ways for alumni, particularly alumni of color, to be involved in this effort?

MR: Absolutely! I remember when I was looking at schools, one of my uncles said “Wesleyan, that’s the school for you!” This was Wesleyan in 1975 and the civil rights work that Wesleyan had done in the late ’60s and early ’70s still resonated with my uncle. I feel that alumni of color are well placed to both talk about the reality of that reputation—how Wesleyan has offered people from various communities around the world a chance to have access to the very best education—and the difficulties associated with that reputation. Wesleyan can be a very alienating place. However, Wesleyan is also a place that allows students from all backgrounds to find the tools to discover what they love to do and get better at it.

I think that the discussion about what it means for Wesleyan to be a progressive institution today is one that would really benefit from the participation of alumni of color on the basis of their campus experience, on the basis of how their education has resonated in their lives and the ways in which their education may have fallen short of their expectations. These will be important things for me to learn as we try to make this school as good at it can be.

What about Wesleyan’s commitment to diversity and as a leader in diversity would you like to preserve or enhance?

MR: I think that there three major concerns in discussing diversity at Wesleyan: access, on-campus experience, and alumni life.

First, access. I think that Wesleyan, like other elite liberal arts institutions, is looking for extraordinarily talented students who can really thrive here. That is a standard that we shall retain. However, that standard does advantage people who have had the resources to prepare themselves for the competition of getting into college.

I think that maintaining a robust financial aid program and a robust affirmative action program that allows students from underrepresented groups to have access to a Wesleyan is absolutely crucial. We don’t want to be in a position of trying to get students here to make ourselves feel more liberal or self-righteous if the students can’t thrive here. At the same time, there are students who could thrive here, who have the capacity and have the talent, but just don’t have the money. and so we need to provide resources to make it more feasible for students from modest backgrounds to attend. I think that increasing recruitment in the West Coast is a really important priority for Wesleyan going forward because of the diversity of the region in comparison with New England.

I’d also like to strengthen our international outreach. I’d like to see how we might be able to create programs that mirror what the Freeman Asian Scholars Program has accomplished with Asia in Africa and Latin America.

I also believe that Wesleyan should collaborate with its sister institutions to improve the possibilities for high school education for people from modest economic circumstances. I would love to see liberal arts colleges have a more prominent role in the conversation about giving these students a chance to have a better education in high school so that more of them would be able to get into the very best colleges and universities.

Michael S. Roth ’78 playing the piano.

Once students get to campus, you have to provide a curriculum for them that gives them access to different modes of knowledge. To ensure students’ growth, the curriculum has to be innovative and flexible. I must work with the academic leaders at Wesleyan to ensure that our curriculum is responsive to innovation. I want to find ways to experiment with the curriculum so that students see our spirit of adventure and experimentation and not solely the preservation of tradition. Another aspect of campus life is the residential and social experience. Wesleyan has a justifiably aggressive reputation for encouraging a diverse community. I feel that is an important reputation to cultivate and maintain. I would also like to make sure that we don’t create a lot of micro communities that don’t interact with each other. We want to give students the freedom and resources to pursue their associations, but also we have to encourage their interactions with the larger community. I’d like students to take advantage of the accidental encounter at Wesleyan and not only spend time with people they think are like them.

Finally, Wesleyan has to be very mindful of its connections to alumni of color. All networking can provide professional, emotional, and familial support and it’s important for alumni of color to have both the intimacy and familiarity of these specific networks for alumni of color as well as to be part of the broader community. Wesleyan has to continue to pay attention and provide resources to support the ongoing conversations among alumni and alumni of color in particular.

Are there specific education and outreach programs that you’d like see Wesleyan to support in the future?

MR: I am not sure what the best route to accomplish this would be; whether to support existing programs, to create new programs, or to work with high schools in the local area. But I do believe that schools like Wesleyan have a responsibility to contribute ideas and sometimes resources to the discussion about access to education.

The Green Street Arts Center (GSAC) is a step in the right direction. It is an important institution in Middletown that is aimed at improving the lives of community members through education in the arts. I’d like to think about the ways in which Wesleyan can continue to offer models for people to improve their lives through education.

Is there anything else that you’d like to share with the alumni of color community?

MR: I’m delighted to be at Wesleyan because it represents the values of progressive education that I share. I look forward to hearing from alumni of color about their experiences both here and after their Wesleyan years so that I can do the maximum to help students of color thrive here and to continue to benefit from their education after they graduate. I would be eager to hear from people who want to tell me how I can improve the University for students of color, because I think that improving the University for students of color would make it a better place for everybody.

For more from President Roth visit his weekly blog, Roth on Wesleyan.