Jill Ker Conway, former president of Smith College, had this to say about being a college president. IT is, in my view, a very Shimerian point: that all parts of this community of criticism, generosity, inquiry and hope are transformed by what we accomplish together.
We are all transformed by the institutions we lead and by the experience of. . decision-making, however large or small the span of authority. That role and the tasks that go with it require a degree of self-scrutiny that most of us, female or male, rarely undertake [whether student, faculty, administrator, staff or friend of higher education]. The person who sits at the point where many contending interests clash, and has to decide how to manage the conflict [difference] in a way that serves the greater public interest, is educated and changed by the experience. (Jill Ker Conway, A Woman’s Education, p. 125)
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