Voice of academia

By Jon Goldstein SunSpot Staff

August 6, 2001

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After a long career in journalism, including stints as head of the Voice of America and host of All Things Considered, Sanford J. Ungar was named president of Goucher College in March. He recently discussed his plans for the school, its role in the life of Baltimore and the rising cost of education.

Are there any parallels between being a college president and a journalist? Did one prepare you for the other?

I think that journalism is good preparation for life -- it is a sort of an ongoing liberal arts education in many respects. So, yes, I think in that sense it is good preparation for running a liberal arts college because it is in itself a liberal arts education. I think that what it takes to do journalism well is to have curiosity, to be able to put oneself in other people’s positions and think about what they would like to know and to have a sort of empathic sense of what’s going on in the world. I think all of those are things that are very much related to a liberal arts college and a liberal arts education.

Has this been something you have wanted to pursue for a while?

Yes, it is. I actually have felt for a long time that I would like to be the head of a liberal arts college. I got into academia in a sort of twisted, funny way. In the mid-'80s I became dean of the school of communication at American University. But it wasn’t a traditional academic position in the sense that it was a professional school, it didn’t have the usual implications of being a dean. But it certainly gave me a sense of campus life and academic life. The feeling that on a college campus you could at least hope that a very substantial percentage of the time that discussion would at least be based in part on ideas and intellectual principles. I really wanted to get back to that. I have long liked the idea of helping shape what a college education should be. It’s a microcosm of the world in many ways. It’s a great spot to be.

What do you think a college education should be?

The reason I like being president of a liberal arts college is that I believe in the liberal arts ideal. I think that all of us need to have knowledge of many things that we don’t necessarily have to feel that we’re going to use in a practical sense every day in our work, but that help shape who we are as people, what our values are, how we approach experiences we have and compare them to others and so on. I think what a college education should be is something where everybody is obligated not just to study some history but to appreciate the lessons of history. Where everyone has to have some sense of the scientific method and the ways in which science can help us understand and improve our lives. I could go on and on. I think that a good liberal arts college responds to new ideas, to new thoughts about how to provide a good education and is always reexamining its curriculum, trying to strike the balance between analytical and practical.

What role should technology play in that education?

I think that technology has to be very carefully incorporated into a college education. There are a hundred different questions about what that means. What is a library? How many books should a library buy versus how much should be available online or on a computer. I think my answer to that is still lots of books should be bought. What are some of the new teaching methods that have to be designed and envisioned and thought about if you are going to provide an education that is consistent with some of what else is happening out in the world. So, technology plays a very, very important role.

What about technology courses? If the purpose of a liberal arts education is to make someone a well-rounded individual, does technological education have to be a part of that?

Sure, I think that technology should be part of the education, but I don’t think that that should necessarily be walled off as a separate course. I think the real obligation is to find ways to impart all kinds of learnings through new technologies, rather than just saying let’s make sure everybody has computer literacy. I think it’s computer literacy to be used how, or technological capacity to do what? One of the great dangers is that through technological innovation a lot of things can parade as knowledge or masquerade themselves as wisdom when they aren’t necessarily. One of the things I am really concerned about is how some young people today, particularly in middle schools and high schools, when they get all this information online, along with this information are they getting the tools to assess how much of it is really reliable? Hopefully, if this is done wisely and well, then people are getting some critical facility along with the technical facility.

What other plans do you have for Goucher? In what direction would you like to take the institution?

My principal focus is on internationalizing Goucher. There’s a great opportunity here in Baltimore. It’s already a fairly international place, but there’s more that can be done in this great port city, this city of immigrants, this crossroads of cultures and peoples and languages. Because of the decline of internationalism in the American consciousness, it really is important for institutions of higher education to make sure that an international perspective is preserved and enhanced. Some of the questions I’m interested in are what does it mean for Americans to be citizens of the world? What are our connections to the larger world? That’s a kind of issue that we’re going to be trying to explore at Goucher.

Can you give me an idea of Goucher’s economic footprint locally?

The endowment is approximently $160 million. The budget for fiscal year 2002 is $37 million. Goucher has 370 full-time employees.

What role would you like to see Goucher play in the life of Baltimore?

First of all, Goucher is already a respected educational and cultural institution in Baltimore. We have a thousand-seat auditorium here, to which a very large number of people come frequently to participate in things. It is a place that has enriched the lives of many, many Baltimoreans over the years.

I would like to see Baltimore and Goucher more engaged together on issues of community development, economic development, community understanding. I think that we need to find ways to implicate Goucher more substantially in the success of Baltimore and in the future growth of Baltimore. I will be doing that. I really believe in the concentric circle theory of endeavor, that if the closest in circle isn’t working, the ones further out will not work very well.

What are some ways that Goucher could be more a part of that engine driving the city?

Finding community institutions where Goucher can have some impact. Finding places where Goucher students can be involved in schools and community service projects that will make a difference. Bringing more people from Baltimore to this beautiful campus. I think that the imagination needs to be set loose on this.

How much of your job will be fund raising?

A fair amount. I think that anybody running a nonprofit institution and an educational institutional these days has to expect to do a certain amount of fund raising. There’s no way around it. Our expectation is that people will help us. The alumni of Goucher will help us and other parts of the community will help us to thrive and do our job well. We have to tell Goucher’s story to all those people. There’s been a lot written that all these college presidents do is raise money. Well, I just don’t feel any shame about that at all. I think it’s wonderful to raise money for an institution like this. Especially when it succeeds. This is all about values and choices. If I can help a few people of means spend money on an institution like Goucher rather than going to Las Vegas then I think I will have done my own community service.

What about the other end of the economic spectrum; is the middle class being priced out of private colleges and universities?

That’s always a worry. I think that the middle class squeeze is alive and well on the college campus. It’s terribly important to try and make a college education affordable not just to the wealthy and the poor but to all the stripes in-between. I think that’s on any college president’s mind. We need to find new, innovative ways to do this. We don’t want to just find ways for kids to assume enormous burdens of debt for when they graduate from college. It’s got to be a worry, but you know it’s run like any other institution that has to survive. You’ve got a certain number of buildings to heat and lights to turn on and off, grass to cut, roads to keep in good shape and all that -- not to mention the profound and primary academic mission of the college. It costs a certain amount of money; the people that work here need to be paid a certain amount of money to do their jobs. Beware the bargain in education because sometimes that means there are some things that are not being well cared for.

What are some solutions for the money crunch?

I don’t think there are any magic pills to be taken. I think we can try to find more donors. But there are also values at stake. I think it is wrong to mislead families that they don’t have to make some choices; they do if they want their children to be educated. They are going to have to decide where to put their resources sometimes. The one thing that is very clear is that it is a good investment. There is no better investment than education. I don’t mean to be callous when I say that, I just do think that sometimes people are going to have to decide -- it’s not going to come free any more than tonight’s dinner is.

From a cost-benefit analysis standpoint, what would be the benefit of the higher cost of a Goucher education than one at the University of Maryland, for instance?

It’s different. It’s a different education. People are making these choices all the time. There are people sending their children to parochial schools or independent schools instead of public schools.

My pitch here would be not a negative one about other places or other ways of doing this but a positive one. This is an institution with a diverse student body that comes from a broad area that has a great tradition of educating people in the liberal arts for full lives and satisfying careers. It’s a place where there’s a lot of individual attention. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be done elsewhere, but it’s just a particular way of delivering it here. I think it’s good for Goucher that the University of Maryland exists and good for the University of Maryland the Goucher exists. Nobody I know is saying, ‘What’s the best way to do this, let’s settle it once and for all.’ I think the idea is to do it in many different ways and to make an education available in many different forms.