One Woman’s Journey in Higher Ed Leadership and Her Advice for Others – Higher Ed Careers

This month’s Higher Ed Careers interview highlights President Dr. Suzanne Rivera of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. She discusses the difficult time in which she joined the campus community and the challenges faced by women seeking leadership positions. As this month comes to an end, we hope that Dr. Rivera’s advice for women pursuing leadership roles in higher education carries on beyond Women’s History Month.

Kelly Cherwin, HigherEdJobs: Upon reading your webpage on the Macalester College website, I was very struck about the moment we find ourselves in. You started on June 1, 2020 as President of Macalester in the middle of a pandemic and in a community where one week before you started George Floyd died. Can you reflect on your thoughts about the moment you started and the moment we are in?

Dr. Suzanne Rivera, Macalester College: I’ve said many times that the job I started in June is not the job I applied for, or even the job I eventually was offered. The world changed before I arrived on campus. I joined the campus community at a time of deep pain and grief. That shaped my first months on the job because attending to people’s physical safety and emotional wellbeing became the top priorities — more important than any of the customary niceties that otherwise would have been part of my onboarding. If the moment I started was one of acute crisis, the moment we are in feels more like chronic adversity. People are worn down by all the losses of the year. Some people call it ‘COVID Fatigue’ but I think it’s more than that. It’s a deep, visceral sadness about all that was taken away and all we gave up to stay safe. Thankfully, we are beginning to turn a corner. I think the roll-out of vaccines is that light at the end of the tunnel we all need to power through the next few months.

Cherwin: Amidst this time, we are beginning to see a point where the campus may return to more resemble a pre-pandemic time. As a private liberal arts college, what steps are you taking to help the campus community make this transition?

Rivera: Yes, I agree. It looks like we can start planning for campus operations that will look more familiar in the fall. In-person teaching, full capacity in residence halls, and large gatherings like intercollegiate athletic contests should all be possible. But I have been studiously avoiding the phrase “return to normal.” It’s clear now that the old normal didn’t work equally well for everyone. And some of the things we had to learn how to do differently this year out of necessity might actually improve the student experience. So, I wouldn’t want to go back to a normal that gave up all that we’ve learned about how to be better, more effective, more inclusive. One example I can give you is that many of our faculty have embraced the “flipped classroom” concept because they see that allowing students to review pre-recorded material asynchronously prior to class time actually makes better use of those precious in-person minutes for discussion, problem-solving, and creating. Students prefer it, too, because it maximizes their autonomy and allows them to benefit from technology tools such as closed-captioning or slowing down the pace of a lecture while listening to it in order to improve comprehension.

Cherwin: What are some of Macalester’s short-term and long-term objectives that you hope to accomplish as part of your presidency?

Rivera: Since I started, I have been emphasizing three priority areas in which I want to focus because I believe they are essential to maintaining and building on Macalester’s tradition of academic excellence:

1) Increase diversity and equity, with an emphasis on the belonging and thriving of people from historically-excluded groups;

2) Doubling down on the college’s commitment to internationalism and global citizenship;

3) And deepening and thickening our relationships with entities outside the campus in ways that are meaningful and mutually beneficial.

We already have begun making progress in all three of these focus areas, including a recent announcement that we will partner with the Posse Foundation to bring in a cohort of talented students from the Twin Cities in 2022.

Cherwin: You are the first female and Latina president of Macalester — what advice do you have for Latina women looking to pursue leadership roles in higher education? Are there unique opportunities or unique challenges that you would like to share with other Latina women? What resources and tools does academia need for women to obtain senior-level cabinet positions at a college or university?

Rivera: My advice for all women looking to pursue leadership roles is the same: prepare, prepare, prepare. You cannot control whether some doors will be closed to you for unfair reasons but, when a door of opportunity opens, you need to be ready to walk through it. If it opens just a crack, you might have to push on it — so be prepared. And, often these opportunities to grow require greater exposure. Don’t shy away from that; step into it. There are some great professional development programs that can help with preparation and visibility. I’m thinking of the ACE Fellowship, HACU’s Academia de Liderazgo, and the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education bootcamps. The HACU program was really valuable for me as a Latina. It was about skill-building, but also addressed directly and candidly the difficulties we face as leaders who might be on the receiving end of bias and low expectations. I found it really affirming, and the network we created is a nurturing group of colleagues and friends I treasure. Academia has got to come to grips with its own narrow-minded view of who can be a leader. Things are changing but very slowly. It’s still the case that fewer than 4 percent of college and university presidents identify as Latinx, and I believe fewer than half of those are female. That means Latina candidates for senior executive roles will necessarily bump up against preconceived notions about what a leader looks like because there are so few examples. We’ve got to change that.

Cherwin: What keeps you passionate about working with the students, faculty, and staff that make up the academic community?

Rivera: It’s easy to be passionate about working in higher education because it offers a ladder of opportunity for talented people to create the lives they want for themselves — and I find that really inspiring. I also love that I get to learn new things every day. I follow the work done by our faculty and staff in their disciplines of expertise, and that allows me to learn and grow. I interact with students and they teach me about their lived experiences, the things they care about, and their dreams for the futures they want to create. What a privilege to be part of this community of thinkers and doers!