New School Professor Named Bank Street School President

Elizabeth Dickey, university professor at The New School, will take over as Bank Street College of Education’s sixth president in August 2008, officials announced last week.

Dickey will succeed current president Augusta Kappner as the 92-year-old education school’s leader. Bank Street—Columbia’s neighbor on 112th Street between Broadway and Riverside Drive—primarily offers graduate degrees in education, but includes other divisions as well: an elementary school with an enrollment of about 500 children, a continuing education program, and a publications and media group.

In a statement announcing Dickey’s appointment, Chair-Elect of Bank Street Board of Trustees and Presidential Search Chair Anthony Asnes acknowledged the difficulty of finding a successor after Kappner’s 13-year tenure.

“Fortunately we have found an exceptional new leader in Elizabeth Dickey, who was recommended unanimously and enthusiastically by the search committee,” Asnes said. “She shares Bank Street’s values and philosophy.”

“Elizabeth Dickey knows how to be strong without strong-arming people,” said Alec Gershberg, a colleague and assistant professor at Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy.

Dickey’s résumé is extensive, and includes a stint as The New School provost and administrator under former president Jonathan Fanton, who is now president of the MacArthur Foundation—described on its Web site as “a private grantmaking foundation focused on human and community development, global security and sustainability.”

As provost, Dickey oversaw six schools within The New School and allocated a $165 million budget.

In a statement, Fanton claimed that Dickey is “one of the most creative and competent leaders in higher education and has the ability to articulate a vision that inspires confidence, commitment, and financial resources.”

In the statement, Dickey said that she first heard of Bank Street while researching children’s playgrounds.

“It is a thrilling challenge to assume Bank Street’s presidency at a time when the public appears to be prepared to pay a renewed degree of attention to questions of pedagogy and policy related to schools and to teaching,” said Dickey, who received her B.A. in art history at Lake Forest College and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical psychology and adult development at Yale University School of Medicine.

Dickey has taught at the Milano School since becoming a university professor in 2003. Her colleagues praised her temperament and her ability to enter a faculty post from a high administrative position without being overbearing.

Gershberg, who has worked at the New School for 15 years, lauded Dickey’s humility in her transition from provost to university professor.

“For someone who studied leadership, she’s really been a quiet leader,” Gershberg said. “She was careful about how she joined our faculty. She didn’t want to be perceived as being imposed upon us. We’ve had internal strife with the administration and she chooses her position carefully if she takes a stand on something. When she does, she’s forceful but never imposing.”

Gershberg, who attended Bank Street’s elementary school, said he is “pleased and surprised” about the selection of Dickey, since her background is “a little bit outside of the box for them.”

While Dickey is “not strictly from an education or education psychology background, she brings good strong roots to a progressive tradition,” Gershberg said.

Milano School professor and Chair of Management Programs Mark Lipton said Dickey’s presidency will be an extension of her previous work.

“At The New School, her purpose has really been focused on innovative ways for adults to learn and creating offerings for adults,” Lipton said. “This appointment is bringing her full circle to an institution that focuses on ways of thinking about education.”

As provost, Dickey helped The New School gather materials for what Lipton called an “overwhelming” accreditation process.

“She is really great at motivating people to tackle problems that sometimes seem impossible,” Lipton said.

And, he added, “She’s always smiling.”

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