Thanks to Dr. Carmen Twillie Ambar, Dr. Melissane Schrems, and Ms. Jennifer Bradfield for their invaluable assistance in making this essay possible. <\/i><\/p>\n
On a beautiful October day in 2006, I met Dr. Carmen Twillie Ambar at a mutual friend\u2019s wedding. I do not recall much about the substance of our conversation except that we (like the bride) shared some of our experiences as women in higher education administration and teaching. At the time, she was the Vice President and Dean of Douglass College at Rutgers University, a college historically founded for women. Because I had been a dean at two other women\u2019s colleges, we affirmed the positive role that women\u2019s colleges play in cultivating women leaders. Beyond that, I do recall the warmth of her smile and of her easy, infectious laughter. Since then, from some distance, I have followed her professional trajectory with increasing interest.<\/p>\n
As an African-American woman who has moved through successive layers of academic positions in public and private institutions to become the president at two different American liberal arts colleges, Dr. Ambar\u2019s career path consistently has brought her to the crossroads of gender and race in higher education. There she has made dynamic leadership decisions impacting thousands of students. She is a rarity. The American Council on Education (ACE) and TIAA Institute in its \u201cAmerican College Presidential Study\u201d reported in 2017, that a mere 5% of all presidents of U.S. colleges and universities are women of color. According to the study, the total number of women presidents has increased in recent years; however, their numbers continue to be disproportionately small. Interviews with four women presidents and chancellors as part of the same report, shared some key insights regarding the qualities of women leaders including the need for women to have confidence in their abilities and the importance of women leaders to be attuned to the needs of diverse student populations (www.tiaainstitute.org<\/span>). This brief case study of Dr. Ambar\u2019s career, especially at Douglass College, Cedar Crest College, and at Oberlin College, reveals how she has lived into both of those characteristics identified by the ACE focus group. In addition, Dr. Ambar\u2019s Presidential Initiative at Oberlin College demonstrates one strategy that colleges and universities can use to confront and change institutional racism in the United States.<\/p>\n In 2016, while she was the President of Cedar Crest College, Dr. Ambar contributed an essay to Women in the Academy: Learning from our Diverse Career Pathways<\/i>. One of twelve women academics included in this collection, she wrote the first chapter, \u201cStanding Tall.\u201d In it, Dr. Ambar reflects on her life story and her career. The title comes from her mother\u2019s admonitions (as part of her training as a dancer) for her daughter to \u201cstand tall.\u201d While that coaching literally applied to Ambar\u2019s physical posture, Ambar also translated the expectation into other realms as well. \u201cIn my house we were taught to stand tall in all things. Tall in our womanhood. Tall in our blackness. And tall in our humanity\u201d (\u201cStanding Tall\u201d np). This sense of confidence and purpose has permeated Dr. Ambar\u2019s professional life.<\/p>\n Ambar\u2019s emphasis on personal integrity and concern about historically disadvantaged groups flows from her early years growing up in the crucible of the Southern Rights Movement in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was born just months after Dr. Martin Luther King\u2019s assassination. Her family\u2019s life orbited near Central High School, site of the Little Rock Nine\u2019s embattled integration. As first-generation college students, her parents earned bachelors\u2019 degrees and advanced degrees, which transformed their lives. Ambar saw first-hand what the value of education offered her family. Her mother taught at Little Rock High School, earned a Ph.D., and chaired the Theatre Department at the University of Arkansas\u2014Little Rock. Dr. Ambar observed how a woman could be an academic leader (\u201cStanding Tall\u201d np).<\/p>\n Besides her mother\u2019s advice to stand tall, her father\u2019s background growing up on a farm also comes into play in her identity and self-confidence. He grew up in a farming family. Each person, no matter how old or young, had work to do; and every family member\u2019s work was essential for success. Her father\u2019s injunction\u2014 \u201cPlow to the end of your row\u201d\u2014demanded that no task should be abandoned before it was completed. Ambar explains how these core principles from both of her parents influenced her. \u201cWhen you have folks who were slaughtering hogs and fighting for civil rights, you learned not to finish until the job was done.\u201d She recalls one example: as a young lawyer working for the City of New York, she spent long nights burning the midnight oil to complete work needed for her clients. Ultimately, her parents inspired their children, who pushed their own boundaries to become \u201ca doctor, a teacher, and a college president.\u201d (\u201cStanding Tall\u201d np).<\/p>\n While validating multiple routes to and through academic leadership, Ambar\u2019s reflection on women and leadership clearly grounds her advances in her ethical stance. She adopted values handed down from her parents and leavened by Southern Rights Movement principles. Ambar applied those life lessons to her education and to her professional life. During her years as a young administrator at Douglass College, she relied upon her ability to stand tall even when advised to bend to the pressure (\u201cStanding Tall\u201d np).<\/p>\n Currently Douglass College describes itself as \u201cthe only residential women\u2019s college in the nation that is housed within a world-class public research university\u201d (Rutgers). In 2002, Dr. Ambar had been the youngest person appointed to be its dean. During the process of confronting institutional priorities, Rutgers University leaders promoted a plan to close the historic women\u2019s college. Some seasoned administrators advised Ambar not to resist the proposal because doing so might threaten her blossoming career. Despite that advice, as a matter of personal integrity, Ambar worked successfully to preserve Douglass College. In her essay, she describes her rationale to risk her career on behalf of the college as growing out of her belief that a college education is relevant and crucial for \u201chistorically disadvantaged groups.\u201d Specifically, she enumerated those groups: \u201cpeople of color, the poor, first-generation college students, and women.\u201d Her commitment to women\u2019s education inaugurated at Douglass College continued when she subsequently became President of Cedar Crest College. From her vantage point on the platform at graduations, President Ambar joyfully watched first-generation women college students lift their diplomas in victory while they crossed the graduation stage (\u201cStanding Tall\u201d np).<\/p>\n In her writing about women and leadership, Dr. Ambar expresses her concern that women leaders be evaluated in ways beyond simply aggregate numbers. Numbers alone do not tell the whole story. Furthermore, not all leadership styles (by women or by men) ought to be replicated. How to determine the leadership approaches that best serve students and their institutions? Dr. Ambar has devised a rubric for analyzing women leaders. Ambar proposes her concept of \u201ccorescendency\u201d a term that combines \u201ccore\u201d and \u201ctranscendence.\u201d She defines it as \u201cthe attribute of transcending gender when necessary to reach a broader audience.\u201d She advises that the transcendence must be constrained, however, so that women leaders do not \u201close the core of who you are, rendering your gender irrelevant\u201d (\u201cStanding Tall\u201d np).<\/p>\n Affirming that women should be \u201cadvancing ethical and democratic causes that ultimately better the lives for the masses of society,\u201d she calls for women to be ethical teachers, role models, and thinkers. To that end of \u201cadding to the discourse,\u201d the Corescendency Test she created assesses women leaders in education. She implies that the same evaluation could also be applied to women leaders in politics and business (\u201cStanding Tall\u201d np).<\/p>\n For Ambar, women\u2019s leadership at its best is connected to a larger movement and a broader history. Women leaders are entwined in community. Women who are not connected and who, by implication, do not value community are \u201clacking a critical element of corescendency. And we should be a little wary\u201d she warns. Carrying this idea of connection further, Ambar prioritizes collectivity. The question she poses here is whether a woman leader sees \u201cher struggle as part of a communal recipe for change or advancement.\u201d If the woman leader has a \u201cpurely personal, parochial, or private\u201d agenda, once again caution is advisable (\u201cStanding Tall\u201d np).<\/p>\n Ambar\u2019s self-understanding as a woman of color shines through her assertions about women\u2019s relationships. \u201cThose women who also assess their personal accomplishments as collective add more value.\u201d The benefit to the community comes from their conscious choices to \u201cmake individual decisions that come out of collective inquiry.\u201d When leaders share their victories collectively, \u201cthey are better citizens of our women\u2019s community\u201d (\u201cStanding Tall\u201d np). Ambar\u2019s thinking about community, connectedness, and collectivity merge feminist ideas about the personal being political with the ideal of \u201cbeloved community\u201d seen early in the Southern Freedom Movement. While the \u201cbeloved community\u201d ideal is often associated with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Congressman John Lewis, the careers of Southern Freedom Movement women leaders like Septima Clark, Diane Nash, and JoAnn Robinson reveal its combination with a feminist mentalit\u00e9.<\/p>\n In a recent interview, President Ambar acknowledges that intersectionality has an institutional aspect in her work. She has made career choices where she can \u201cthink about the institution across all types of issues\u2026other things to consider besides race or gender.\u201d She has found that \u201cin the rooms I\u2019ve been in\u201d whether universities or businesses, \u201csometimes people want you to bring a validator that is not being a woman or a person of color.\u201d Nevertheless, intersectionality is \u201canother layer of challenge.\u201d She explains that, as a college president, intersectionality \u201ccomes into play in the way I build a leadership team.\u201d She intentionally includes persons of color, and \u201cwherever people are on the gender spectrum\u2026 I think I have one of the more diverse leadership teams around.\u201d More diverse decision-makers means that decisions have a broader perspective, which ultimately leads to better results. \u201cThere is a certain power in that,\u201d she says. \u201cThere is a positive effect on the bottom line. Even if institutions may not be committed to the ideal of diversity, they care about that!\u201d (Ambar 12\/22\/21).<\/p>\n President Ambar continues to be aware of the ways that students and young professionals observe her. \u201cAll of us need images to look to and to believe what they want to do is possible. That is how the space of being a woman of color is what I experience\u2026at this place in my career.\u201d Although she does not make a point of discussing the demands of being a single mother of three, she has acknowledged that there are structural needs in American society to support professional women and their families. \u201cOne of the things that I have hopefully demonstrated is that this is do-able\u201d (Ambar 12\/21\/22).<\/p>\n In the spring of 2017, Dr. Ambar became only the second woman and the first person of color to preside over Oberlin College and Oberlin Conservatory. Her first two years took aim at internal organization of the renowned liberal arts college noted for its progressive\u2014and often activist\u2014students (Oberlin). Then came the Covid-19 pandemic necessitating Oberlin\u2019s shut down on March 16, 2020 and shift to online learning. In short order, the earth-shattering murder of George Floyd exploded, shaking the national consciousness. In her interview with New York Times <\/i>journalist Kara Swisher, Dr. Ambar recalled her response to Floyd\u2019s death. \u201c[A]s a Black woman, I was exhausted of these images,\u201d she says passionately. \u201cOh my God, I cannot take another one of these!\u201d Despite the hours of effort to pivot to online learning and \u201creshaping the campus\u201d for Covid compliance, Ambar rallied her campus to address racism and create an antiracist strategy. The Presidential Initiative was \u201cborn out of pain\u201d to take an interdisciplinary and multifaceted approach to identifying and remediating institutional racism (quoted in Swisher). \u201cOberlin has a long history of doing race work,\u201d Ambar points out. At this point, the institutional focus \u201cneeds to be in a systematic framework. We need to dig deeper. Be willing to look across disciplines. Take a deeper more rigorous analysis\u201d (Ambar 12\/22\/21).<\/p>\n The Presidential Initiative at Oberlin implements an approach that resonates with the work of Ibram X. Kendi. \u201cThe only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it\u2014and then dismantle it.\u201d Institutional anti-racism examines policies, conditions, systems, and structures to determine what is wrong and then to initiate change (Thompson). While Dr. Ambar acknowledges that she knows Kendi\u2019s work, she explained in her interview that The Presidential Initiative emerged from her own experience and reflections: \u201c[W]hat\u2019s Oberlin\u2019s part in this? What role can we play in what I hope will be a nationwide effort to rethink ourselves?\u201d (quoted in Swisher). She readily points out that \u201cOberlin has a long history\u201d of awareness and activism about racial inequity and racial inclusion, which has positioned it to undertake this initiative (Ambar 12\/22\/21).<\/p>\n Dr. Ambar freely acknowledges to Swisher that she faces a multifaceted context at Oberlin. On the one hand, \u201ca president of a campus for 3,000 students may have more influence and ability to encourage\u2026collective action than it may be for a president with 20,000 students.\u201d However, \u201ccreating a diverse campus that looks like the world yet is selective\u201d presents a conundrum. She enumerates five key institutional foci: 1. \u201cCreate a financial framework to create accessibility\u201d 2. \u201cCreate a campus environment that is supportive and welcoming\u201d 3. \u201cWhat does the staff look like?\u201d 4. \u201cWhat does the faculty look like?\u201d 5. \u201cWhat is the curriculum?\u201d (quoted in Swisher). These institutional thrusts could well serve as a template for other higher education institutions to approach systemic diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.<\/p>\n One of the Presidential Initiative programs that Dr. Ambar feels particularly strongly about is \u201cSustained Dialogue.\u201d She points out to Swisher that \u201cthe truth of the matter is that we all need to practice how we listen\u201d [to each other].\u201d Difficult conversations are most productive when people \u201clisten with the purpose of understanding, not with the purpose of changing people\u2019s minds.\u201d The \u201cSustained Dialogue\u201d program gives students a way to \u201cliterally practice how to talk to people who have different perspectives, and to take these lightning rod issues and just practice [listening].\u201d As its name suggests, the program brings students together to have challenging conversations in a series of sessions with the same people. \u201c[W]hat that means,\u201d Ambar observes, \u201cis that you don\u2019t get a chance to be rude and walk out the door and never talk to that person again.\u201d But, more than simple courtesy, \u201cSustained Conversations\u201d develops skills that Dr. Ambar believes are vital beyond campus life. \u201c[I]t\u2019s important to our democracy\u2026what good citizenship is,\u201d she claims. \u201cIt\u2019s about the nuance of the different lived experiences that I think we all have in this country and how we hear that from the other person.\u201d The \u201cability to hear and listen and understand and appreciate different narratives are some critical skills that I think we have to provide our students\u201d (quoted in Swisher). Currently 250-300 Oberlin students participate in \u201cSustained Dialogue.\u201d \u201cThe goal is to provide a framework where every student can do it once during their time at Oberlin\u201d (Ambar 12\/22\/21).<\/p>\n \u201cBridging the Gap\u201d expands the scope of the \u201cSustained Dialogue\u201d program. Oberlin has established a partnership with another small college nearby \u201cwhere students with different experiences can interact\u2014again, in an ongoing basis.\u201d Some people \u201csee Oberlin as a place that celebrates difference, but only the difference we agree with,\u201d Ambar acknowledges. It has been \u201ca purposeful choice\u201d to be \u201clinked with institutions with different missions\u201d (Ambar 12\/22\/21). Ambar told Swisher that the \u201cBridging the Gap\u201d approach is \u201cinstead of calling somebody out, how do you call somebody in?\u201d For Dr. Ambar, there are two, crucial learnings: \u201cdon\u2019t start with the personal [such as name calling,] and remember we\u2019re going to have to see each other again.\u201d The hoped-for outcome is to \u201chave a conversation that\u2019s about colleagues\u201d and to learn \u201cwhat it means to be a great partner\u201d (quoted in Swisher).<\/p>\n She also points out that listening is relevant for people besides college students. \u201cThis doesn\u2019t come that natural to any of us. Practicing it is the way to all be better at listening to different perspectives.\u201d It\u2019s an important skill set: \u201cHow to have a hard back (standing firm in your beliefs) but have a soft front (allowing you to hear others and others to hear you).\u201d She continues, \u201cFor BIPOC folks to confront institutional racism challenges\u2014we\u2019re gonna need white folks. I don\u2019t see how we\u2019re going to get to the root of the challenge without working together\u201d (Ambar 12\/22\/21).<\/p>\n Announced in a press release on December 8, 2021, The Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has been designed to \u201censure that Oberlin is consistently contributing to the national conversation on race\u201d (Oberlin DEI Center). Not only an academic enterprise, The Center also takes a multifaceted approach that combines academic study with \u201creal world experiences that students care about\u201d President Ambar explained. \u201cCo-curricular experiences, career programming, mentorship, and community building\u201d draw the DEI Center into the campus at large as it connects with other, already established programs while cultivating new ones. President Ambar enthusiastically describes how The Center extends beyond the college and conservatory borders with opportunities for students to obtain work experience. Especially students who arrive at Oberlin without prior employment now can build their resume as they confront topics like mass incarceration, police-community relations, educational opportunities, and other systemic issues that foster racial inequity (Ambar 12\/22\/21). Still in the formative stages, The Center will be staffed by an executive director and student fellows \u201cengaging in funded research and internships that tackle the issues\u201d (Oberlin DEI Center).<\/p>\n The crossroads in African American folklore is a place of power, opportunity, and mystery. Its liminality offers access to spiritual powers from other worlds for heroes (and \u201csheroes\u201d) to accomplish important cultural deeds. In the discourse about American racism, some observers view the intersectionality of race and gender as a debilitating overlay of two handicapping conditions. Yet, Dr. Carmen Twillie Ambar\u2019s career path and her current leadership as Oberlin College and Conservatory President serves as a case study to show the positive power of race and gender. She successfully traverses intersectionality in her career as a woman professional of color. Her leadership offers valuable antiracism strategies at the institutional level in higher education.<\/p>\n Dr. Ambar is one of the few women who have been working at the crossroads of gender and race in a variety of institutions for over twenty years. If more women of color are to be nurtured as institutional leaders, her accomplishments and her reflections offer valuable insights about the challenges and potential for women of color in education and in American society. Her reflections on her development of a strong sense of integrity and self-worth confirms key components for women leaders as presented by the ACE study of American college and university presidents.<\/p>\n In addition, Dr. Ambar\u2019s work reflects the American College President Study finding that top level leaders must be aware of and responsive to the needs of diverse students. The murders of George Floyd (as well as Breanna Taylor and many others) nationally elevated concerns about American racism. Programs promoting antiracism strategies at the institutional level have begun to address the hidden biases of established organizations. The self-analysis that leads to identifying racist systems and structures is part of the remediation process that dismantles institutional racism. The five foci of Dr. Ambar\u2019s Presidential Initiative at Oberlin offer a heuristic model for other organizations. The \u201cSustained Dialogue\u201d and \u201cBridging the Gap\u201d programs bring antiracism attention to the grassroots level, literally to where students live. The Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, particularly its internships, both remediate students\u2019 needs for employment experience and extend the benefits of academic research into the larger society.<\/p>\n Dr. Ambar\u2019s strategies to \u201cdo better in diversity across all ranks of the institution\u201d (quoted in Swisher) demonstrate her concept of \u201ccorescendency\u201d in women\u2019s leadership. She has kept the community at Oberlin at the center of her vision while retaining her core values and integrity. Her success is linked inextricably with the advancement of \u201chistorically disadvantaged groups\u201d (\u201cStanding Tall\u201d np). In essence, she practices what she preaches. Particularly since the Covid pandemic began, she has told students: \u201cWhen you\u2019re facing a really challenging situation, you have to look for the seed of opportunity. And this will transform you\u2026 You have to ask, what can you learn from this transformative moment in your life?\u201d (quoted in Swisher). Dr. Carmen Twillie Ambar has shown that her career at the crossroads of gender and race have provided her with many seeds of opportunity. Learning from the transformative moments in her life, she has used her leadership as a woman of color in shaping the future of higher education institutions and the lives of their students while confronting institutional racism.<\/p>\n Ambar, Carmen Twillie. Interview. By Cheryl C. Boots. 22 December 2021.<\/p>\n Ambar, Carmen Twillie. \u201cStanding Tall\u201d Women in the Academy: Learning from our Diverse Career Pathways<\/i>, edited by Angela R. Linse. Kindle, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016, np.<\/p>\n Gagliardi, Jonathan S., Lorelle S. Espinosa, Jonathan M. Turk, Morgan Taylor. \u201cAmerican College President Study.\u201d American Council on Education and TIAA Institute. 2017. https:\/\/www.tiaainstitute.org\/publication\/american-college-president-study-2017 <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Oberlin College. Carmen Twillie Ambar. About Oberlin. <\/i>https:\/\/www.oberlin.edu\/carmen-twillie-ambar <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Rutgers University. Rutgers: Douglass College<\/i>. https:\/\/douglass.rutgers.edu\/ <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Swisher, Kara \u201cNo parties. No Sports. How Oberlin College is Surviving.\u201d Sway. Interview with Dr. Carmen Tillie Ambar. New York Times. <\/i>February 18, 2021. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/02\/18\/opinion\/sway-kara-swisher-carmen-twillie-ambar.html?showTranscript=1 <\/span><\/a><\/p>\nPersonal Integrity by \u201cStanding Tall\u201d<\/h4>\n
\u201cCorescendency\u201d and Leadership<\/h4>\n
Antiracism at Oberlin<\/h4>\n
Oberlin\u2019s Presidential Initiative<\/h4>\n
Oberlin\u2019s Sustained Dialogue and Bridging the Gap Programs<\/h4>\n
The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Center at Oberlin<\/h4>\n
The Crossroads<\/h4>\n
Works Cited<\/h4>\n