Pushing the boundaries
By Sandy Coleman
At the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., President Ronald A. Crutcher keeps a close eye on his watch. He is at the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Council on Education (ACE). Here, as with every place that requires his presence, time is a precious resource. And he doesn't waste a moment.
He is a member of ACE's board of directors and chair of the planning committee that put together this five-day brainstorming conference on higher education.
Here the leaders of colleges and universities and the heads of national education organizations from all over the country have gathered to talk about the challenges currently facing institutions of higher education and listen to top policy makers in the field, including the new U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, whose speech about President Barack Obama's commitment to education was carried live by C-SPAN. (Crutcher first met Duncan when they both attended the Aspen Institute's Executive Seminar in 2003.)
Crutcher, heading into his sixth year as Wheaton's president, has fully immersed himself in the ever-broadening role demanded of today's college presidents. Because of national as well as international competition for students, dollars and donor devotion, the work of a college president has expanded well beyond campus.
For Crutcher, the job includes "making it a high priority to be a public spokesman for what a liberal arts education means and why what Wheaton does should be done by others," says Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). The president is co-chair of AAC&U's Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP), a national initiative promoting liberal education.
ACE president Molly Corbett Broad notes that the challenges and complexities of leading a higher education institution have changed radically and multiplied dramatically in the past 20 years, according to a recent ACE study on the American college president.
"Although strategic planning remains ultimately what it has been-an internal campus process and responsibility-there has been an unmistakable shift toward planning driven by forces external to the institution itself," Broad says. "Private institutions have not entirely escaped the increasing influence of government regulators, accreditation agencies, demographics and students' needs. Moreover, powerful forces of global change such as technology, the knowledge explosion, demography and the global economy have impacted American higher education."
That's why Crutcher committed to addressing external demands as soon as he set foot on campus. "I felt that as successful as Wheaton has been at transforming the lives of young people, the college's light could shine brighter," he said. "I felt our reach and reputation needed to be much broader than it was, given the quality of education that students get here. And this-the national involvement-is one way that I'm able to do that.
"One of the points of trying to extend your reach and reputation is that when you go to potential supporters-be they individuals or foundations-you are a known entity. And if in some way you can implant at the subconscious level of their brain the fact that 'oh, yeah, that's a really innovative college,' then you've done a good job."
In fact, the search committee that recruited Crutcher to replace Dale Rogers Marshall, who retired in 2004, knew this. After meeting with the Wheaton community to seek input, search committee members made it a priority to find a candidate who had the potential to expand and strengthen Wheaton's external reach, notes Wheaton Trustee Thomas Hollister, who was chair of the search committee.
"The message was that we needed someone who could increase the visibility of the college," Hollister says. "So much hinges on attracting good faculty, students, and also raising money.
"We're very lucky to have him. Since President Crutcher arrived, the visibility and awareness of Wheaton has increased significantly. Fundraising clearly has been successful [the past two years have seen the best fundraising numbers in the college's history]. The board has been thrilled with the quality of the students coming into the school, as well as recent faculty hires."
Naturally, the demand on college presidents to amplify themselves as ambassadors to the world beyond campus presents challenges. Most notably, the president still serves as the chief executive officer of the institution, with all the day-to-day on-campus management that role implies.
"It's a challenge," says the professional cellist, music scholar and leader who rises at 4:30 each morning to begin his day. "I've learned that the hard way. I had a 360-degree [performance] review of myself done in 2006. One of the things that struck me when I looked at it is that a lot of people felt that they wanted my presence more on campus."
So he is trying to be more efficient with his time, being very intentional about the events he attends, knowing that there are certain events and ceremonies he can't miss. He eats in the faculty and student dining halls when he can. He also has created open office hours for students, faculty and staff members to talk to him. Finding balance is an ongoing pursuit.
As one faculty member points out, Wheaton College is a small community, so many people expect "face time" with the president in a way they would not expect at a larger institution.
Professor of Psychology Grace Baron, who has nearly 30 years of perspective as a Wheaton faculty member, remembers well the faculty meeting in which President Crutcher brought up his performance review and what was being asked of him. "It was this eye-widening moment," said Baron, describing how faculty members looked at each other in nonverbal recognition that Crutcher was listening. "He said, 'The feedback I got was that you'd like to see more of me, while you want me to also keep going.'"
"For me," said Baron, "that was a real turning point in sort of saying, 'oh, I think we are connected on the internal mission.' It's a challenge. It's a dance. We're trying to figure out the steps. We asked for an external president, and we're also saying we want to get to know you because we are a relational place. I think that's really what it is. We're a relational place. And he's seen that and heard us really well."
Being a college president is a nearly impossible job, notes Hollister. "There are six different constituencies who all think they know what the president should be doing and they all want time: students, faculty, staff, alums, the town, the board.... The president is expected to be at the big soccer game on Saturday afternoon. On Monday he is expected to be across the country at an alum reception. On Tuesday he's expected to be on campus discussing a faculty request. Fortunately, Ron's personal integrity and his commitment to the best interests of the school stand him in good stead."
Just last year alone, the president attended 660 on- and off-campus meetings, 100 events on and off campus, took 43 trips and was at 41 board meetings and five conferences.
Crutcher's schedule encompasses conversations with the many stakeholders on campus in Norton, Mass., visits to the homes of alumnae/i donors nationwide, and meetings at the offices of funding foundations and in the mass company of audiences like the one at the ACE conference, where he took the stage to present a diversity leadership award to Freeman Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and Wheaton's 2007 Commencement speaker.
Crutcher came to Wheaton in 2004 with a reputation as a national leader in the arts and higher education. Although reach and reputation are hard to quantify, it is clear that he has continued to raise his national profile and that of Wheaton College by working his way into major roles in other national organizations, including ACE, where he has been on the board since 2007. He was elected secretary of the board in 2009. Prior to becoming the co-chair of LEAP, he was chair of the AAC&U board of directors. AAC&U recruited Wheaton to participate in a study of best practices in liberal education, and has highlighted several of the college's programs as models for other institutions. He is one of only two college presidents on the Posse Foundation National Board.
"Because ACE is the most significant umbrella organization for higher education in the country-particularly now under Molly Broad's leadership-it is key that Wheaton has a connection to the board," says Crutcher, sitting in his Park Hall office. "It's a great way to be connected to the larger higher education world."
Broad notes that Crutcher has been a model member and leader on the ACE board. "He has been involved in mentoring emerging leaders through ACE's leadership development programs. He has supported new leadership development opportunities such as the Institute for New Chief Academic Officers and other programs that have also potentially contributed to Wheaton's institutional effectiveness in a number of areas, including diversity and internationalization. He has taken advantage of opportunities to expand his network of peers and is highly regarded by his colleagues and future leaders for his timely advice and counsel."
Schneider, AAC&U president, notes that Crutcher has been an important voice in promoting the concept of inclusive excellence nationally. In 2005, as part of Wheaton's strategic plan, Crutcher created the President's Action Committee on Inclusive Excellence (PACIE), aiming to achieve educational excellence through diversity and the development of a truly multicultural community.
"In the past, 'excellence' meant that you kept a lot of people out," says Schneider. "The LEAP commitment and Ron as leader argue that every student needs the best education we can provide at all institutions. His personal commitment has been inspiring for many of us."
Schneider also says that Crutcher has helped raise the visibility of the significant role a liberal arts education plays in our society. "We're in a moment in time when everyone wants to go to college, but many in the public have an old-fashioned idea of what you need to do in college. Wheaton has made a change in the way that you approach a liberal arts education. For example, the Connections curriculum-getting students out into collaborative projects, teaching them to apply learning to real-world projects-that's all a new development," she says.
"There is a shift in society away from thinking of pursuing a liberal arts education as being a time for pulling back from society toward a notion that your liberal arts education is a rehearsal for how you will put knowledge to work in the world. So the fact that someone like Ron is making it part of his public role to explain how liberal arts prepares you for the powerful role you need to play in society is fulfilling a much needed leadership role."
The book Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter is an example of that raised visibility. Through Crutcher's relationship with George D. Kuh, the director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University Bloomington, home to the National Survey of Student Engagement, Crutcher was able to share Wheaton's approach to liberal arts. Wheaton ended up prominently featured in the book that Kuh co-authored. In 2006, the New York Times identified Wheaton as one of the nation's "hidden gems" in an article that referenced Wheaton's mention in Kuh's book.
In 2007, the U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings invited Crutcher to participate in a national summit on reform in higher education. Last year, he was invited to speak at the 2008 TIAA-CREF Institute Higher Education Leadership Conference, "Higher Education in a Global Society."
"I used that opportunity to unabashedly tell people what we're doing at Wheaton," he says. "I talked about our vision for 2014, that we want our students to be global citizens prepared to lead in a complex society and complex world."
That ability to fit Wheaton into any conversation, even the most casual, surfaces during a break at the ACE conference.
Madeline d'Ambrosio, vice president and executive director of the TIAA-CREF Institute, stands in the lobby of the Omni hotel telling Crutcher about an upcoming forum on how colleges are addressing the economic crisis.
"Would you be willing to be a part of it?" she asks him.
"Yes," Crutcher says.
He then begins to describe how the Wheaton community is engaged in conversations about what needs to be done to ensure a sustainable financial structure for the institution long into the future.
