“In the summer of 2018, when I moved from the huge president’s home in Pennington, New Jersey, into a two-bedroom apartment in midtown Manhattan, I dedicated a large close in the study to boxes and boxes of memorabilia, pictures, letters, and diaries. After my nineteen years as university president and four months of retirement, I began reading the letters and notes, and a writing project came into focus.”
Thus R. Barbara Gitenstein, the longtime president of The College of New Jersey who retired in 2018, begins her memoir, “Experience is the Angled Road: Memoir of an Academic,” published earlier this year by Koehlerbooks. “This book,” she continues, “is informed by the words memorialized in these old papers, but it is primarily an acknowledgement of the impact people and places had on me.”
The headings on each of the five chapters that comprise the body of the book begin with “Learning to …” and highlight the people — parents, teachers, friends, lovers — and experiences that shaped her worldview and ultimately informed her path through academia and her tenure as a college provost, at Drake University in Iowa, and president, at TCNJ.
In her introduction, Gitenstein continues: “On January 2, 1999, I became the fifteenth president of The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), the first woman to hold that post in its 146-year history. In fact, I was also the first non-Protestant. Interestingly enough, that detail was not highlighted in the public narrative, though it was and is an important feature of my identity. Indeed, I discovered in my years as president of TCNJ that every element of my identity informed my leadership: being a woman, being a Jew, being a Southerner born to natives of Manhattan, being a liberal, being a wife, being a mother. Serving as a president or chancellor is an all-encompassing, devastating, and humbling role. Awareness of multiple identities calls on your inner reserves and convinces you that you accomplished nothing by yourself.
“When I arrived at TCNJ in January 1999, The College was an excellent regional college, focusing on the education of academically gifted undergraduates from New Jersey. The students were noted for their exceptional SAT scores; the campus was lovely, thought a bit too manicured; the faculty were known as committed pedagogues but not distinguished scholars. When I stepped down in July 2018, the college was as well-known for the results of a TCNJ education as for the inputs of the students who chose to attend: four-year graduation rates increased from 58 percent to 76 percent, placing TCNJ as the sixth in the nation for four-year graduation rates of all public institutions. The undergraduate curriculum was completely overhauled to focus more time and energy on faculty/student interaction, resulting in the appointment of more and more exceptional teachers who were also nationally recognized scholars. Furthermore, by the end of my tenure, a higher percentage of TCNJ graduates had completed doctorates than any other institution in New Jersey, except Princeton University. There was tremendous investment in the physical plant, particularly in the building and renovation of first-rate academic facilities, but there was also a recognition of the importance of enhancing the out of classroom experience: we partnered with a New Jersey developer to build a campus town, which served as a gathering place for locals and students alike. During my tenure, the support from the state of New Jersey continued to drop, and consequently, we grew enrollment while at the same time maintaining a strong academic profile and growing out-of-state enrollment, both of which added funding (more students meant more tuition dollars; out-of-state student tuition was almost twice as much as in state tuition). TCNJ completed its first ever fundraising campaign, exceeding the $40 million goal by over 18 percent. All these successes were accomplished by a team of exceptionally talented colleagues (administrators, staff, and faculty). These people were at least as important in the rankings and the successes as I and were essential in transforming the college from good to great.”
But, she continues in her reflections, the hard times are just as important as the successes in defining a leader’s legacy:
“Being a president is not just being at the helm of a ship cruising toward an intended goal; it is also being at the helm during times of crisis. For any president, the most painful crises are student deaths, through suicide, illness, and car accidents. Of all the student deaths during my time as president, the most excruciating happened in 2006 when a freshman student went missing over a March weekend. By the end of the week, his blood was discovered in the dumpster near his residence hall and a month later, his body was found in a landfill in Pennsylvania. The sound of media helicopters buzzing the campus still haunts my dreams, as does the sight of students sitting on benches outside their residence halls, weeping and looking terrified. New Jersey State Police were everywhere, yet no one felt safe. What got us through that terrible time was that with the help of talented staff members, I narrowed the focus of my job. Two weeks before the student’s disappearance, Governor Corzine proposed a historic cut to state funding of higher education in New Jersey. At his announcement, the budget seemed to be a major disaster. After the student disappeared, the budget became merely priority setting and addition and subtraction. My job almost solely became communication of what I could share and when I could share what with the students. The media and even concerned parents were not my major concern. It was the students.”
Good times or bad, she concludes, it was the people around her who made all the difference and, each in their own way, inspired her book.
“I am forever indebted to these amazing colleagues and professionals who were with me through all the institutional successes and crises at TCNJ just as I am indebted to the extraordinary family, friends, and colleagues who mentored me in my earlier life. This book is about those people who prepared me to take on the challenge of the TCNJ presidency.”
“Experience Is the Angled Road” is available on Amazon.com. $23.64.
