Tue 14 Oct 2008

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25 Responses to “Nancy Roseman finalist for Principal of Phillips Exeter”

1. Larry George says:

   Is the principal the head of the school, or does someone else do that and this person (then presumably a subordinate, as the Williams Dean is to the President) attends mainly to academics and care-and-feeding issues? Different schools organize themselves in different ways. The job description might be important in making the evaluation.

   Also, you might get more complete and candid responses if you added to your post a separate email address where people could send you responses or that you could use to set up a telephone chat. Some of the regular posters had a lot of contact with her in their roles as student government leaders and could provide you detailed information. If you don’t want to use your own email account, you could set up a gmail one just for this.

   I hope graduate school is going well. We miss hearing from you. Please write “home” more often if you have a chance.

   October 14th, 2008 at 11:01 am



2. Larry George says:

   i just clicked through and found the job description. Sorry.

   October 14th, 2008 at 11:04 am



3. Anon Eph says:

   I always envisioned Nancy as more of a Vladimir Putin type. She seemed more comfortable pulling strings and being the real power behind the throne, whereas the job description you posted seems more in line with what Morty does at Williams. If she does become principal, I suspect she’d be a very different type of principal than what you are used to or expecting. She would be fairly intensely involved in actual administration and curricular issues, perhaps greatly to the school’s benefit; however, I don’t see her as a much of a schmoozer or public relations type.

   October 14th, 2008 at 12:10 pm



4. Rory says:

   I wouldn’t call her a Vladimir Putin type at all. She was no nonsense and didn’t like the publicity at times while I was there, but she wasn’t hiding from it (nor was she nefarious, aggressive, bellicose, etc.–all adequate ways to describe putin). Whether or not that translates to exeter, i don’t know.

   October 14th, 2008 at 1:33 pm



5. JG says:

   I agree with Rory that she was pretty no-nonsense – and defnitely not Putin-like, as I never felt as though she was hiding something! I had both positive and negative interactions with her on various issues…but part of that was the conflict between the role she had to play as an administrator and the creative/different role I may have wanted her to play. Wow, several years out I have a much different perspective – still not all good, but I do give her more respect now.

   She would not be the kind of schmoozer that Morty is – she isn’t as automatically warm and gregarious. She is more business-like in her manner generally, but pretty passionate about her work and ideas. I think that would appeal to a lot of alums/donors. While I like Morty very much, he is very good at telling people what they want to hear – so I am not always confident that I’m getting the full story (including the negative parts). If Dean Roseman said something, you could pretty well count on it being the whole story, because she would also tell you no or disagree with you when it was needed.

   In my experience she did make a serious attempt to reach out to students and seemed good at remembered their names, etc. She was pretty visible around campus, but that perspective might be skewed by the level and amount of interaction I had with her as an active student leader. Again, she’s not the warm and fuzzy type, so I think this one will depend on exactly what type of personality the search committee wants – she could be very good in this position I think.

   October 14th, 2008 at 2:38 pm



6. Diana says:

   Thanks, Larry. Here is the job description (PDF). Those who want to send me private e-mails can write to 07djd “at” williams.edu.

   My sense of her is that she would not be a good “principal instructor” (a teacher who is currently above the other teachers, but who is still a teacher) and cuddly friend to students. But I would appreciate others’ experiences if you know her better. (And being cuddly is not in the job description.)

   October 14th, 2008 at 2:41 pm



7. PTC says:

   Is she a good manager?

   October 14th, 2008 at 6:21 pm



8. David Kane says:

   1) I have only met Professor Roseman once in person. She did not strike me as someone who would like the endless glad-handing and schmoozing that the Principal job requires. Now, you might argue that she just appeared that way to me (Roseman is no fan of either EphBlog or my own writing) but appearing to like people who, in fact, you don’t like is a key requirement in any leadership role.

   2) One of the qualifications for the job is to have “Cared deeply about and have contributed to the intellectual, emotional, and social development of adolescents.” How does Roseman qualify for this? Perhaps she was very active in the summer science program that helps out incoming first years. Perhaps she played a big role in organizing the use of the Williams science facilities for local high school students. If she has not demonstrated a serious interest in adolescents, I would be very concerned if I were on the search committee. Why would she want the job? Perhaps she is just being used as a stalking horse for a preferred insider candidate?

   3) Is it common for tenured college academics to take such jobs? Hank Payne went from Williams to Westminster, but I can’t think of other examples.

   4) I think that Roseman was a fine Dean of the College. Morty certainly was a fan, otherwise he would have eased her out much sooner. If you are a friendly president (like Morty) then you need a Dean who is willing to be the bad girl, willing to make the hard decisions and suffer the slings and e-mails of student unpopularity. As best I can tell, Roseman fulfilled that role well. Is that a good background for being the Principal at Exeter? Not that I can see.

   5) Here are some highlights from my posts which mention Roseman. Read this as well.

   6) Perhaps Roseman’s dislike of blogs means that she is better suited for an educational context involving children rather than adults.

   Why is Roseman so blind to the benefits that the blogs bring to Williams? Tough to know, but I’ll freely speculate. I think that there is a certain kind of administrator who does not really trust the students, who thinks that any discussion on a controversial topic needs to be supervised and moderated. This sort of administrator likes campus forums and classroom discussions because some adult is in control, someone is running the show. For this sort of person, the blogs are anarchic, out of control, always degenerating, making more trouble. A real dialogue includes a teacher, a Socratic figure who guides the benighted students.

   Blogs are messy. They aid the students in doing for themselves what the College is unable and, often, unwilling to do for them. They represent a loss of control for Hopkins Hall.

   I don’t know if Roseman is this sort of administrator. Perhaps there is some other explanation for her ridiculous comments. But, regardless of the explanation, the messiness is here to stay. The Dean of the College today has much less control over conversation on campus than the Dean did 20 years ago. Nothing can stop that trend from continuing. Embrace the Blog, Dean Roseman. We are the future.

   7) My prediction is that Roseman stays at Williams.

   October 14th, 2008 at 8:49 pm



9. Will Slack '11 says:

   Payne went on to be President of Woodward, not Westminster, but high praise for substituting the name of another ATL prep school, David. I’m impressed as an Atlantan native.

   Westminster, for whatever reason, seems to be Williams’ primary GA feeder school – most all of the frosh from my state went there, as well as most in my year.

   October 14th, 2008 at 9:17 pm



10. JG says:

    Quick correction to point #1 from David above:
    

    appearing to like people who, in fact, you don’t like is a key requirement in any leadership role.

    No offense to you David, but my impression is that presidents/principals need to kiss a** with people who either have tons of money they are willing to part with, or who have a relationship that carries a lot of political weight to get things done and/or cause you problems. Perhaps you fit into one of those categories, but I haven’t gotten that impression before. Just saying that you might not be the appropriate test case.

    Re: #2, my impression was that she actually was pretty involved in the summer science programs.

    Re: #6 – if you’d written something like that referring to me in such a condescending manner, I would not have been able to pretend I like you either. You assume that anyone who doesn’t love EphBlog and your approach to it is uninformed or just doesn’t get it. Perhaps they just disagree?

    October 14th, 2008 at 11:11 pm



11. David Kane says:

    #1 The tricky part of being president/principal is that it is tough to know who you have to be nice to. All the best ones solve this problem by being nice to virtually everyone.

    #6 This discussion had almost nothing to do with EphBlog itself. Roseman was complaining about the WSO blogs. And, since it is a free country, I have no problem with Roseman not liking me (to the extent she does, if at all). I am sure that there are plenty of folks at Exeter that she wouldn’t like. Skilled leaders hide their dislikes thoroughly.

    October 15th, 2008 at 12:16 am



12. 07 EPH says:

    No offense to you David, but my impression is that presidents/principals need to kiss a** with people who either have tons of money they are willing to part with, or who have a relationship that carries a lot of political weight to get things done and/or cause you problems. Perhaps you fit into one of those categories, but I haven’t gotten that impression before.

    Couldn’t disagree more with this, JG. Great CEOs and managers don’t act obsequiously in front of the bigshos while being aloof and standoffish towards underlings. That’s actually the behavior of a sycophant. An effective head of an organization has to be able to maintain good relations with a whole range of people, in this case including faculty, students, and parents. Being able to reliably kiss donor ass is not sufficient if you lack the personality to get faculty, students, and the larger community on board with your strategy.

    Take a look at cluster housing. Would you say the implementation of cluster housing was an example of effective executive decision-making? That process was the most major project that Roseman drove during my time at Williams, and it bore her hallmarks: planned out in secret with little chance for outsiders to give any input, implemented in a rush with total indifference towards student or faculty opinion, and an utter flop within two years of implementation.

    I believe that someone with better ‘marketing’ and ‘people’ skills would have been much more successful at implementing something like cluster housing. The plan might still have had substantive problems, but Roseman utterly and totally failed to generate student buy-in, primarily because it was obvious that she was basically indifferent to what students had to say.

    There is a kernel of truth in what David has said. She does not welcome or respect student participation when it comes to any kind of major decision. Her publicly expressed contempt for blogs does, I believe, reflect a broader dislike for open discussion. While this might, in theory, make her more suitable as a high school administrator – I sincerely doubt that the kids at Exeter are the docile and passive type of high schooler who will take her high-handedness lying down.

    To the trustees and administrators of PEA: While Nancy Roseman is a smart, competent person, she is not a great leader. You can do better.

    October 15th, 2008 at 1:06 am



13. Larry George says:

    I don’t know Dean Roesnman, but I wish those wanting to comment on her potential fit/lack of fit for the job in question would have done so through contacting Diana by email or telephone, rather than posting their contributions on EphBlog. Yes we like transparency and yes she is a big girl, but I don’t think this is the sort of thing that should be discussed on EphBlog. I know I would not want any job search of mine to end up with a public discussion of my qualifications on EphBlog. I don’t think it is in the nature of blogging on a site such as this to provide the sort of thoughtful, carefully considered, balanced, honed commentary that the subject matter deserves, and there is a huge potential for abuse. I hope that, if they come upon them, the PEA search committee will take the postings with a very large grain of salt and, instead, give great weight to comments that come to it complete with names, telephone numbers for follow-ups, and the context of who the commenter is and how he/she knows Dean Rosenman.

    And, before anyone gets defensive or jumps on me, please understand that I am commenting on the process, not on the content of the comments posted. Just because we can comment on someone who is, relatively speaking within the Eph world, a public figure and just because the comments didn’t go totally toxic doesn’t mean that we should be commenting publicly like this or that it is an effective way to help out on a job search. Our discussions don’t have to e pablum – far from it – but I’d like for this site to help build community and I don’t see this thread as promoting that (the opposite, in fact).

    October 15th, 2008 at 7:15 am



14. Larry George says:

    Apologies for the typos above.

    I also forgot to say that one thing that has been weighing on my mind is any Dean’s role in disciplining students. When I realized that people were going to post their responses to Diana’s question, I feared that someone might try to use the opportunity to exact revenge on Dean Rosenman. Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to have happened.

    October 15th, 2008 at 7:23 am



15. Diana says:

    Thanks, everyone, for your quite insightful comments. They are very helpful to me.

    October 15th, 2008 at 12:13 pm



16. JG says:

    07 EPH – perhaps my experience was different than yours because I was involved in discussions with Dean Roseman about big issues before they were implemented – these things were not publicly posted anywhere (feel free to be outraged David, I didn’t post the notes of every meeting I ever attended on a bulletin board). I wasn’t on campus for cluster housing, but I’m willing to bet she was implementing Morty’s plans for the most part since it seems to be his baby. She is the bad guy, he gets to remain above the fray and be the liked President while the Dean’s do the dirty work – just my impression of how things often work. Certainly she could have done better, but she is not alone.

    Also, you’re deluding yourself if you think that CEOs are any different than a school President in terms of the people they take the time to make happy. It isn’t necessarily about being obsequious, but taking (and having) the time to listen to the concerns, make them feel heard, and moving forward is a luxury provided to the upper levels, not to the night custodian or the 2d year analyst. There is limited time in any given day, and making one random alum happy who has the same exact axe to grind all the time about Williams (and has been answered repeatedly) may not be high on the list. Frankly, I would think it woudl be a waste of time if anyone could get unrestricted access to the time of a CEO or college president – they have more important things to do.

    I don’t think she’s a perfect dean, nor have I ever met one. I happen to think Morty is a damn good president but there are still things he could improve upon – one being the above-mentioned tendency to let his “underlings” get all of the blame for flaws in his own ideas.

    I would be curious to see what Dean Roseman could do as the top of the food chain where she got to direct things, rather than taking the lead from Morty (or anyone else). I think it is a somewhat different skill set, and I think it might bring out a different side of her. Maybe not, but I think she’d then get to rise and fall on her own ideas.

    October 15th, 2008 at 1:34 pm



17. 07 EPH says:

    JG – CEOs are very different than school Presidents or Deans, in that CEOs need to be accountable to their board, to major shareholders, to securities analysts, etc. In many cases, they also may need to pay attention to regulators and unions. CEO performance is measured daily, and they can be fired at any moment. College administrators are far less likely to lose their jobs over a screw-up.

    I am not sure who held Morty or Nancy accountable at Williams – certainly not the board of trustees, they were and are a rubber stamp body that is only shown a prettified version of Williams College with all leadership failings brushed aside. College Council is a joke – it failed to stop, or even put up meaningful opposition to, any objectionable administrative action, in the entire time I was there. Major donors hardly have the time or interest to take a broad interest in the running of college. Since they also seemed to be less than eager to listen to faculty or student input, who exactly were they listening to?

    This is not a moral failing of the two specific individuals who run Williams. For the most part, they did a good job with the power they were given. There is a structural flaw in the way that Williams and other colleges are governed, that actually makes top college administrators far less accountable and responsive than CEOs at major corporations.

    October 15th, 2008 at 2:19 pm



18. David Kane says:

    I am not sure who held Morty or Nancy accountable at Williams – certainly not the board of trustees, they were and are a rubber stamp body that is only shown a prettified version of Williams College with all leadership failings brushed aside.

    Evidence, please. Although I have my differences with the trustees, they seem to handle themselves professionally. They clearly care about Williams and are involved. They even read EphBlog! They know as much about “leadership failings” at Williams as they need to know.

    Also, although no one (?) has written more words critical of Dean Roseman as I have (contrary examples welcome!), I think that she did what she had to do for Cluster Housing. Her boss (Morty) was tired of seeing all the black students live together. He wanted that to end. She made that happen, and took a lot of arrows that were directed at Morty along the way.

    If she were being considered for Dean at Exeter, her performance at Williams would count for a great deal. But the Presidents job is a different one. How different is best left to the Exeter Search Committee. Good luck!

    October 15th, 2008 at 2:59 pm



19. Ken Thomas '93 says:

    Diana,

    Been thinking about this for a while. My memories of Roseman are fuzzy enough– and so early in her tenure at Williams– that I do not want to say anything specific, lest I be inaccurate or unfair.

    It is also hard to gather impressions that are fair: as in Lowell’s thread, our personal biases and experiences often leave impressions that aren’t the whole picture. Bob Jackall loved to present the classic example: five blind men touching part of an elephant, one describing the ears, another the trunk, another the legs, another the wide and flat side… none realizing that they were dealing with anything resembling an elephant.

    We’re so often like that in our individual experiences: and the sum of five blind men’s descriptions is still blind– not an elephant! I’d hate to have that kind of description– potentially the sum of individual discontents and bias– negatively affect Roseman’s career.

    All that said, I have some concerns. I think David’s comments, above, do reflect a tendency in the Deans’ Office to condescend to student’s positions and expressions. You don’t have to talk about Nancy Roseman to talk about that: Sawyer has a few histories that make the accusation against various Deans decades before.

    I am more particularly concerned, however, when anyone in the Deans’ Office, for whatever reason, makes a habit of using their position to disrupt or interrupt the expression of students’ ideas and opinions, either for personal or administrative convenience.

    Again, I’m not saying anything particular about Roseman here– and I hardly have enough experience to comment in her particular case.

    However, my suggestion would go somewhat as follows: find students who interacted with Roseman over a period of time, in administrative contexts and forums, and use that to form a ‘profile’ (and perhaps a concrete document) of how she has interacted with students. Do people feel they were dealt with fairly in general (as is indicated by some above)? Did she address concerns openly and in a straighforward manner? What are some concerns, if any– are those issues Exeter may wish to address beforehand? Does the overall pattern that emerges fit with Exeter’s “culture” (or with changes it wishes to make in its culture)?

    October 15th, 2008 at 7:10 pm



20. Derek says:

    There might be a million reasons to take this position, and I have no opinion on Roseman. But at least from the vantage point of academia-qua-academia (as opposed to weighing the relative merits of a career in administration) this is certainly a step down and I’m a bit surprised to see a dean at Williams considering it. Exeter is a wonderful prep school, and we may be comparing apples and carburators, but Williams is Williams.

    Now there may be a dozen other factors to consider, and I am not saying this is a bad career decision and certainly have no idea of personal circumstances. But at least from the vantage point of academia, leaving a deanship at Williams for a high school principalship, no matter the high school, is a bit perplexing.

    dcat

    October 15th, 2008 at 8:22 pm



21. JG says:

    Derek -

    I had a similar thought process at first about this possible move. My thought is that perhaps she has a better shot at moving into a small college presidency if she has experience being at the very top. I don’t know if that is true, as I have zero knowledge of the general hiring practices of colleges, but that was the explanation that came to mind.

    It will be interesting to see if anything comes of this.

    October 15th, 2008 at 11:20 pm



22. Chole Smith says:

    No favorite of the students at Williams. It would be a good idea for Exeter to read back copies of the Record. A cold fish.

    October 17th, 2008 at 12:19 pm



23. Carl Jones says:

    Seconded. Terrible choice.

    October 17th, 2008 at 12:21 pm



24. Derek says:

    JG –
    Maybe. But in all honesty, even if she were not to move up right away, a deanship at one of the elite colleges probably ranks higher than a principalship or headmaster position at even the best high school. But of course you could well be right, and maybe this is what she really wants, and if so, best of luck to her. It still seems odd to me (maybe she wants more pay at Williams) but the job market is a perplexing thing.

    dcat

    October 17th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

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