6/25/2020 colleges report progress in diversifying leadership - Boston Business Journal

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From the Boston Business Journal: https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2020/06/25/as-small-mass-colleges-diversify-leadership- the.html

As small Mass. colleges diversify leadership, the largest are slow to catch up

Jun 25, 2020, 6:18am EDT

Five more Massachusetts colleges are slated to have Black leaders this summer as the local higher education sector slowly works toward its goal of more diverse leadership.

The current presidents of in Needham, Simmons University in Boston, Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston and North Shore Community College in Danvers all be succeeded by Black presidents or interim leaders when

the current ones retire or move on to new roles this summer. COURTESY SIMMONS UNIVERSITY Lynn Perry Wooten will succeed Helen Drinan as While the leadership of the regional higher education sector is president of Simmons University this summer, one of a handful of local colleges where leadership is diversifying, Andrea Silbert, president of the nonprofit Eos Foundation, getting more diverse. says most of that progress is happening at smaller universities.

“We have made a significant amount of progress among presidents with racial diversity at community colleges and smaller liberal arts schools, and we have made pitiful progress among our largest research universities,” said Andrea Silbert, president of the Eos Foundation. “That’s where we have to put the pressure. Smaller schools are showing the way and large universities should stand up and pay attention.”

In a study last year, Eos found that fewer than one in five college presidents in the state identified as a person of color in 2016.

Nationally, a 2017 study from the American Council on Education found that individuals who identified as minorities made up 17% of college and university presidents in 2016. Just 8% of presidents in 2016 identified as Black. Among the presidents of color, 36% led two-year institutions and just 5% identified as women of color.

Olin College said last month that Gilda Barabino, dean of The Grove School of at The City College of New York, will succeed President Richard Miller on July 1. Olin was previously one of six schools in Mass. that had never had a female president before Barabino’s appointment.

"I applaud Olin for (hiring) their first woman and first African American president," Silbert said. "I think that’s so exciting and one that I would like to call out because that’s an engineering school and they worked really hard to find a woman of color for that position. They were so intentional."

The Eos Foundation found a small number of community colleges are close to proportionate representation for racial and ethnic minorities. (Nate Bryant, chief of staff to President John Keenan at Salem State University, will become North Shore Community College’s interim president when Patricia Gentile retires in July.) https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2020/06/25/as-small-mass-colleges-diversify-leadership-the.html?iana=hpmvp_bost_news_headline&s=print 1/2 6/25/2020 Massachusetts colleges report progress in diversifying leadership - Boston Business Journal “Gender parity and racial, ethnic balance are highly fluid and, like a see-saw, can easily fall out of balance with personnel changes, particularly at the presidential level,” the study wrote. “The singular impact of the president points to a critical need for schools to develop systems and institutionalize practices, which will stay in place after presidential transitions.”

In addition, Lynn Perry Wooten, the dean of Cornell University’s School of Applied Economics and Management, is succeeding Helen Drinan as president of Simmons University on July 1.

In a recent interview, Wooten talked about the fight for racial equity and said "higher education has historically had a role in civil rights protests. I think this time is calling for even a bigger role."

David Nelson, the president of Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt), stepped down this month to take the top job at Catawba College in North Carolina. Kymberly Pinder, MassArt's provost and senior vice president of academic affairs, has been appointed interim president, effective June 15, as MassArt's board of trustees searches for a permanent successor.

Robert Johnson, currently chancellor of UMass Dartmouth, is exiting this summer to become president of Western New England University. UMass Dartmouth is currently searching for Johnson’s successor.

The Eos study found that institutions in the state made progress in 2019 towards closing the gender gap in the sector's leadership, with women making up half of the 14 new presidents of local colleges appointed during the 2019 academic year.

In its report, the Eos Foundation recommended that college presidents should hire chief diversity officers to lead diversity and inclusion work, and that they should have a direct connection to human resources and the academic leaders in order to inform recruitment and hiring efforts.

The percentage of Mass. college and university presidents who identified as a race or ethnicity other than white more than doubled between 1986 and 2016. Still, institutions, especially large research universities, have more work to do to achieve racial equity.

“While Massachusetts is moving in the right direction with the recent additions of seven female presidents, far too many schools are making minimal progress toward gender parity and racial, ethnic representation at the highest leadership level,” the study wrote.

Hilary Burns Associate Editor Boston Business Journal

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