Spectator got a chance to sit down with Board of Trustees Chair Anna Quindlen, BC ’74, and future Barnard College president Debora Spar, following the announcement of Spar’s appointment on Tuesday morning.

Spectator: Can you tell me a little bit about the set of criteria you were looking at [during the presidential search]?

Anna Quindlen: We were certainly looking for someone who would have a rapport with the faculty, either because they a had been a respected tenured faculty member themselves or because they’d been an administrator who’d worked closely with faculty. And, in fact, in Debora we found both in one person, which is one of the things that made her candidacy compelling for us. ... It’s a little like what one of the Justices once said about obscenity: “You know it when you see it.” And we knew it when we saw it.

Spectator: Fundraising in the past has been a concern for Barnard. Can you talk about what some of your goals are going to be?

Debora Spar: I think it’s too early for me to have any specific goals. ... I think Barnard has done an incredible job of providing the kind of education that it does with an endowment that’s really quite small relative to its peer schools. It’s pretty clear that increasing the endowment would be a great thing to do. ... I think raising money for Barnard should be actually relatively easy because it’s such a good cause. I think if you look at what Barnard’s mission is, you look at the assets it has—its relationship to Columbia, its position in Manhattan, its tradition, its students—this strikes me as a relatively easy sell. ... This is a great place that would be even greater if it had more funds.

Spectator: What is the relationship between Barnard and Columbia now?

Spar: I’m not sure I fully understand it yet (laughs). It’s clearly a unique relationship, and I use a phrase that one of my colleagues has been telling me who has his Ph.D. from Columbia. He always says that Columbia is a national treasure and Barnard is its jewel, which I think is actually a very, very nice phrase. They’re both phenomenally strong institutions. They’re very different institutions, but as I understand it they really complement each other. I think it’s hard perhaps for students to see, but many faculty have these dual draws, that they really like teaching small classes ... but at most places where you can teach small, intimate groups of smart students you don’t have the ability to do top-tier research. You can at Barnard. So I think there’s a really special nature of the relationship. And from what I understand, the relationship between the two schools is in terrific shape right now, so my job is to make sure it stays in terrific shape and gets even better and stronger over time.

Spectator: You don’t have a background with women’s colleges, as was touched on this morning. What role do you think that will play in your presidency? That’s a big part of Barnard and it’s very important to the students. How will you uphold and prove that you really understand those values?

Spar: As I said this morning, my route to women’s colleges has been very circuitous. I think 20 years ago I would have told you that I don’t think we need women’s colleges anymore because if you can go to Columbia, why go to Barnard? But I fundamentally no longer myself believe that to be true. Now I think I’ve seen enough women—both my friends and, more poignantly, my students—who have been incredibly successful in school by some measure and yet still face real issues when they go out in the so-called real world. And I think women’s colleges provide a different kind of education for women, and I think that the kind of education they provide and the kind of context they provide, the kind of nurturing they provide, the kind of support they provide, does give young women a different footing from which to go out and tackle the world.

Spectator: We still hear frequently that women can’t have a successful professional life and a successful family life and as a woman who has both, how does that affect your view of Barnard?

Spar: This is one of the most important challenges out there, that it’s just hard to be both a parent and professional, and it is particularly hard to be a mother and a professional because, for whatever deep-seated biological, societal, sociological reasons, society still expects the mother to be the primary parent, and this is a huge issue. I think it’s an issue that can be tackled, but it’s not an easy one. And one of the things I worked on at Harvard Business School was family leave policies, so when I started at Harvard Business School there was no maternity leave. I was pregnant my first semester in the classroom and I returned to teaching six weeks after having my baby because that’s what you did. That’s not what you should do. In the time that I was there, Harvard put a very generous maternity policy in place, but it didn’t solve the problem because it turns out even if you have a generous three-month maternity leave, well, then you have a three-month old. Life has not gotten any easier. ... So the problems that women face, and I think particularly the problems that mothers face, are very real problems. And clearly it’s not the role of women’s colleges alone to solve these problems, but I think there’s ... real research that can be done. ... I think these issues are both critically important and they’re also, intellectually-speaking, they’re fascinating, and again this is one of the reasons why I’d really like to be in a place where I can devote more of my own brain to actually working these issues.

Spectator: I’d like to turn for a second back to the Barnard/Columbia relationship. One of the most unique aspects of the BC/CU relationship is the link way in which professors are granted tenure. Can you comment on how that process and if you would seek to change it?

Spar: Well, I certainly wouldn’t have any thoughts about renegotiating it coming in. I think it’s one of the things that make Barnard both fascinating and complicated because basically what you’re saying to Barnard faculty is you have to be excellent at both: you have to be an excellent teacher because that’s one of the things that’s prized at Barnard, and you have to be an excellent researcher, academic, which is one of the things that Columbia is going to prize. I don’t think that’s an impossible combination. I think that’s a tough combination, but I think that’s actually what makes Barnard so excellent because that is the ideal world, right? To have faculty members who are both great teachers and great researchers. And oddly enough ... it’s very similar to the environment I’m in right now because Harvard Business School ... places a huge premium on teaching, and if you’re not a great teacher you do not make it on the faculty at Harvard Business School. And yet at the university level you only get tenured for your research. And so this balancing act is something I’ve worked on a lot in my current job, and I think it is particularly tough for women, because now you’re saying you’ve got to be a great teacher and a great researcher, and you’re juggling two kids at home and a husband. So going into this, my presumption certainly wouldn’t be that this is a relationship that needs to be fixed, it’s just that the Barnard faculty needs support to do what is really a Herculean task. I think more schools should look like Barnard in the sense of having faculty who are both great researchers and great teachers.

Spectator: What is your sense of the relationship between the students and the president?

Spar: Well, that was one of the attractions to me. ... I love interacting with students ... and I’ve actually missed interacting with undergraduates. I’ve had phenomenal students over the past 16 years but they’ve been students who are older and who already know what they want to be when they grow up, and one of the things I’ve missed is interacting with students who don’t know what they want to be when they grow up because it’s a different, kind of a more nuanced relationship, so my hope is that I will have a good opportunity to interact with students, I don’t know what form that will take yet, I’m open to suggestions and advice on that.

Spectator: Tell me about the transition period and how that time is going to be passed?

Quindlen: I’m so happy to say that President Shapiro sees this as a great opportunity for the College in terms of a transition of leadership, which doesn’t usually happen. Usually on the last day one president leaves and on the first day the new president comes in. Since we have the time for this kind of overlap, Professor Spar for example is meeting with President Shapiro on Thursday at the President’s apartment so they can get to know each other, and I anticipate that there’s going to be a constant exchange of information even before she [Spar] takes over on July 1. I’m going to create a transition committee from various constituencies. The Provost Elizabeth Boylan and I will co-chair that, and it will have two roles I think: to be a resource for Professor Spar between now and July and supporting her afterwards up until her inauguration in October, and also to be a resource for the community in terms of letting them know how the transition is going, how they can be helpful, finding out what they need to suit their comfort level. ... We’re going to approach this very purposefully and president Shapiro is approaching it incredibly collegially.

Stephanie Turner transcribed this interview.