How do you feel about leaving Barnard?
It’s very bittersweet at the moment, it’s been an amazing nine years here. It’s reassuring to me to know that I’m not going very far, but it’s still going to be hard. And now I’m of course doing all of the last. I always have a little dessert party for all of the seniors and we just had the last dessert party this week and the last faculty meeting. So it’ll be hard and I’m really going to miss all the students.
Is that the hardest part about leaving?
Yes! That’s going to be the hardest part, yes.
What made you decide to make the switch mid-year?
Well, it’s sort of two questions. The big one was agreeing to take the job. It’s not something I was anticipating doing, it’s a huge change for me. But it’s a really exciting place and it’s one of those opportunities that doesn’t come along very often. And so when this did happen, I just felt like it was a once in a lifetime chance, and that my time at Barnard was sort of winding down. I took this job saying that it was a seven to ten year job, and this is my ninth year. So I knew it was never a perfect time to leave, but I knew I wouldn’t be staying around much longer, so Lincoln center was the right thing at the right time, with the complication that it’s the middle of the year.
Lincoln center had been without a president for nearly a year, and they needed someone yesterday, so working with the chair of their board and the chair of my board, we tried to come up with something as easy as possible for both institutions. So March 4th got me through the last board meeting here, nearly til the end of the year, whereas Lincoln Center, they really need someone in that role.
What qualities do you think the next Barnard President should have from your experience?
My honest answer is, I think really healthy organizations operate on a pendulum principle. Any person in a job like this can only do so much; you inevitably focus on a couple of things and hopefully, if you do a good job, you do those things well, but that means you’re not doing a whole lot of other things. I think a healthy organization chooses successive leaders who are quite different. I would hope and expect that Barnard would pick someone who’s quite different from me, and hopefully will keep going with the things I started, but will have her own agenda and will focus on a different set of things.
What are your hopes for the continuation of the Bold Standard and the new library?
Well (laughs), those things have to happen! The library has to be finished, but it will! The library is more or less in the lock and loaded stage at this point, it’s designed, we have all the money, the steel is going up. So that’s just going to be fun for me to come back and see it! That’s just going to happen. The Bold Standard is in very good shape, we’re not completely at the end of the campaign, but again, one rarely is. So that’ll keep going.
And then I think one of the things that’s really been satisfying is that we have diversified the campus, particularly at the student level. And I really hope that that continues, that we continue to get the diversity of students both in terms of race and socioeconomic background, and international background. Some of that, particularly in the international piece, is going to be made harder not by what happens on campus here, but by what’s happening in the world. I really hope we still keep getting students from every corner of the world, and I think that’s something that all of American higher education is concerned about right now.
I think we’ve really have phenomenal faculty, we’ve had phenomenal faculty for a while, and I hope we keep them coming here. And of course, one of the other big things that’s happened during my tenure here has been the Athena Center. I think that’s been a big change for Barnard; I think it’s been a very exciting new set of programs and student activities and things like the film festival. I hope and expect that that keeps going. And then the new curriculum, again the new curriculum is sort of like the building in the sense that all the hard work’s been done and it will just kind of chug along.
Relating to the Athena film festival, do you feel the arts at Barnard and Columbia impacted your decision to join Lincoln Center?
Yeah I really do! Barnard is a school that, someone inevitably has a lot of students and a lot of activity in the arts, and one of the reasons that students come to Barnard is because they want to be in New York City. They want to dance, they want to audition for theater, they want to work on Saturday Night Live, and so we have a real critical mass here in dance, in theater, in architecture, in film, film is really growing, and it’s been a great pleasure for me. I’ve always been deeply interested in the arts, although not directly involved, but going to the film festival, student dance productions, the Varsity Show, acapella concerts, they’re great! Being in that world is really exciting for me. And now what I have to do, and I’ve been saying this on both sides of my new life, is to find new ways to bring more college students to Lincoln Center, and get more college students performing at Lincoln Center. I’m really trying to build up those links.
Do you have any programs planned for that?
I’m starting to think about that! It’s weird because I’m not in that job yet so I can’t start doing things, but I’ve already floated a couple of things with my about to be new colleagues, and I’ve already spoken to a few students here and elsewhere and said “bring me ideas, come to me with ideas and let’s see if we can make them happen”.
Check back tomorrow for part two of the interview, with Spar’s comments on the mourned Magnolia tree and her NY Times article!