Williams laying foundation for next chancellor

Interim chancellor details campus priorities, discusses leadership role

by Daniel J. Fitzgibbons, Chronicle staff

Marcellette G. Williams (Stan Sherer photo)

f anyone thought interim Chancellor Marcellette Williams was simply going to keep the seat warm for a permanent successor, the last few weeks have demonstrated that she has no intention of putting the administration on cruise control.

     Since the beginning of the semester, Williams has had her leadership tested by both circumstance and design. The tragedies of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks forced her to marshal campus resources to console and reassure the University community. And as the business of the campus moved forward in the days after, Williams approved a controversial proposal to close the Department of Consumer Studies.

     Williams says she does not intend to be simply a caretaker.

     Instead, she sees her role as laying the foundation for a permanent chancellor while sustaining the strength and vitality of the campus, qualities she says are crucial to attracting strong candidates for the top leadership post.

     "We deserve the best and to attract the best, we need to show we're doing great things," she says. "They don't want to come to a hunkered-down campus. ... That's not the kind of campus we can afford to be right now."

     As part of that effort, Williams is focusing administration energy on reviewing and assessing the current state of all campus units, from each executive area to the schools and colleges and individual departments.

     "We need to look at the units so that we have a complete data set for the new chancellor," she says.

     Once the data, including analyses of similar numbers from peer institutions, are collected, says Williams, "We will know better, in some comprehensive way, where to take the next step, which will likely belong to the new chancellor."

     According to Williams, having a complete picture of the campus is particularly crucial given the uncertainty of the state budget and the economy as a whole. "It's important to be as complete and as accurate as possible, whatever the circumstances are. Otherwise, it's more difficult to make decisions."

     Williams says the entire community should be heartened by the comments of UMass Worcester Chancellor Aaron Lazare, who publicly acknowledged the "flagship" status of the Amherst campus in his review of the institution.

     "It was almost an epiphany," she says, "A great morale booster."

     The revival of the flagship label affirms "the strengths and excellence of the faculty," Williams says, and also stands as a reminder of the campus's standing within the system. "A flagship must be maintained," she notes.

     Williams' planning mindset comes naturally after seven years as deputy chancellor, where she was intimately involved in the strategic planning process launched by Chancellor David Scott. As deputy chancellor, Williams also worked closely with the President's Office and Board of Trustees, which likely factored into her selection as interim chancellor, a choice that surprised no one more than her.

     "I was very surprised," she recalls, "and I thought it about it very, very hard."
The decision was complicated because Williams was a finalist for the top post at East Carolina University when President William M. Bulger asked her to serve as interim chancellor.

     The offer, she says, "was an affirmation of the good things happening here."
However, Williams told Bulger that she wanted it made clear that she would not be a candidate for permanent appointment as chancellor.

     "I believe it's the right thing to do," she says. "I don't need people looking over my shoulder questioning my motives. ... The decisions I make, I make unencumbered."
So she has set about the tasks before her. As she puts the campus review process into motion, Williams is also trying to foster a more humanistic atmosphere on campus.

     Publicly and privately, Williams peppers her remarks with the words like "community," "cooperation," "collaboration" and "enablement" - themes that she hopes will be the hallmarks of her administration.

     She is also leading an ambitious year-long effort to encourage a community-wide conversation about "living values." As part of that effort, the campus will host a visit next month by Linda and Peter Biehl, whose daughter Amy was killed during racial violence in South Africa, where she was working to promote democratic values. The Biehls later forgave their daughter's murderers and have continued her work on social justice issues in South Africa.

     Williams has embraced the Biehls' example of living values that encourage the growth of more ethical, socially conscious human beings who can contribute to improving the world in meaningful ways.

     In some ways, Williams' aspirations for the campus sound like a variation on what David Scott termed the "integrative university," an institution where internal functions are inextricably linked to the mission of education, but in the service of a broader national and global community.

     However, Williams brings her own perspectives to the concept. As the leader of campus administrative restructuring and a key player in Scott's strategic planning efforts, she has a keen appreciation for the products of those initiatives.

     Ticking off examples ranging from Continuous Quality Improvement to supervisory training to the use of new teaching technologies, Williams declares "these are all enabling mechanisms" that contribute to the campus's intellectual vitality and promote a more humanistic approach to education.

     "We must develop the full potential of people. Learning is important to living," she says. "We, as an institution, are helping people realize dreams they didn't know they had. ... We need to enable students, faculty and staff to fulfill the institution's mission of education."

     As faculty adapt to a new paradigm of teaching that involves a more active role by students, Williams says all members of the campus community need to understand they are part of a larger community and an ongoing commitment to learning.

    "We have to prepare people to be helpful and participate," she says. "All need the opportunity to have their voices heard."

     Finding channels for those voices is part of the administration's mission, says Williams, who says her style is to seek many opinions before making decisions. Drawing not only on the expertise of her executive team, Williams says she wants to involve more members of the campus community in policy discussions.

     "Any assumption, whatever our output will be," she says, "seems to be better if our work is collaborative."

     Despite her call for an "open administration" that assumes the participation of those beyond the halls of Whitmore, Williams says decision-making ultimately ends with the chancellor.

     She downplays her rookie status, noting that she often served as acting chancellor while David Scott (whom she still refers to as "The Chancellor") was out of town. But she does concede that it's different now that the leadership role is hers alone. "It's a wonderful challenge."

     To meet that challenge, Williams says she is guided by the same values - collaboration, enablement, caring - that have always been part of her ethos. "Over the years, I've tried to take responsibility for addressing situations rather than letting everything come at me," she says.

     Those ideals took on more meaning during her years as deputy chancellor, which gave Williams a deeper appreciation of the campus as a community devoted to learning. But in the aftermath of Sept. 11, Williams says, the role of that community has assumed even more importance.

     The times compel universities, particularly public institutions, to consider anew their broader responsibilities and obligations, she says. Along with educating their students, Williams says, faculty must use their expertise to explain and address the challenges of the modern world.

     "It's easy to ascribe to academic freedom without thinking of the responsibility that attends having such freedom," she says. "The public education of citizens is essential ... it goes to the heart of the nation."

     Williams shared a similar message last month in her first address to the Faculty Senate since taking office, reminding the audience of their "obligation to insert new questions into public conversation, on this campus and in our nation."

     "The public has entrusted us," she added, "not to do their thinking for them -- but to think out loud, to enrich public conversation and to enable a larger and more diverse set of voices to join the dialogue. We do well, I believe, when our ideas enable others to speak; we do well, when we listen, and allow ourselves to be changed by the conversation."
Just as the events of the last month prompted many people to reflect on their lives, the tragedy gave Williams a new perspective on the role of the chancellor.

     "We all have more of a sense of fatigue and doubt these days when life seems so fragile," she says. "It's given us a heightened sensitivity to things happening daily."

     In particular, Williams says, "I try to be more concerned about the inadvertent consequences of decisions. ... I hope my decisions will make lives better."