News

Chopp ushered into new presidency with Class of '13

In print | August 27, 2009

President Rebecca Chopp claims she never thought she’d be where she is now. Or where she’s been.

“I grew up in the 50s, and I grew up in the middle of Kansas,” she said. “I always imagined that I’d have nine children and I’d be very involved in civic community and community theater.”
Chopp, who is starting her first year as the college’s fourteenth president, has had an illustrious career, from ordained minister to college professor, from dean of Yale Divinity School to president of Colgate University. She sat down with Assistant News Editor Dante Fuoco to answer questions about hopes for the future, lessons from the past, her personal passion, and what she loves about Swarthmore.

Dante Fuoco: What excites you about this upcoming year? As each student at the college has been asked in his or her application, ‘Why Swarthmore?’ ”
Rebecca Chopp: I think what excites me is getting to know the students and the faculty and the staff. I’m excited to welcome the class of 2013, but for me, the sophomores, juniors, and seniors are also new. So, I’m really looking forward to getting to know the students. I’m looking forward to attending arts events, athletic events, hearing debates. I look forward to seeing the work that students and faculty members are doing through the Lang Center.
So, “Why Swarthmore?” I think, for me, as I look at the landscape of higher education and undergraduate education, Swarthmore really represents the finest of the values of liberal arts education. Swarthmore cultivates a rich intellectual life for students and for faculty. It’s committed to educating individuals to contribute to the common good, which I think is extremely important. And I think it has this very distinct community life that is threaded through with the values very important for the 21st century.

DF: Since you started on July 1, are there any new initiatives or ideas going on at the college? Any that you’d like to see?
RC: One of the new ideas that has been going on in the college — and I don’t quite know when it started, but I believe it’s relatively new — is the focus on wellness for the students. In fact, yesterday I heard someone starting to call it “Swellness,” which is kind of fun [laughs]. And I want very much to support that. I’d be trying to link that with the whole notion of sustainable living, which combines the emphasis on living with the earth in a sustainable fashion, simple living, which is a value out of the Quaker tradition that Swarthmore was founded [and] relevant to these financial times, and healthy living, which was also a big focus for the Quakers. So I think that’s a very important initiative for the school, and I think we can have a lot of fun with that and do a lot of great things.

DF: What principles and values at Swarthmore would you like to maintain?
RC: The notion of responsibility for individual convictions, individual judgments. The Quaker founders talked about this as “minding the light.” And it’s an interesting phrase because it means always being skeptical of one’s own position as well as others’ — really going through rigorous reflection and not just accepting easily one’s prejudgments or prejudices or those of those others’. And that’s combined at Swarthmore, and in our tradition, with the high value of community and a sense that one learns about oneself only through engaging others. That, to me, is one of the most important. A second value is that life is about service to others and building the common good. … Our school has this absolutely phenomenal history of being founded by people like Elias Hicks and Lucrietta Mott, who were radical suffragists and abolitionists. … They believed in the equality of others and thus had to create a more just society so everyone could exercise of their rights and have a life of flourishing.

F: What lessons or experiences would you like to carry over from your time as president at Colgate?
RC: I think the importance of collaboration with the whole community. At Colgate we did a very ambitious strategic plan. And we formed that plan and executed that plan through a lot of collaboration with the staff and the community and the students, so I’ve seen how much better it is to have that kind of collaboration and that everyone’s ideas contributing to makes it better, so I’ll probably bring that. I think the other thing that I’ll probably bring from Colgate — one of my favorite things from Colgate — is Colgate’s personality combined academic seriousness with a lot of fun and a kind of zest and enthusiasm for living. And I learned a lot about how to combine those things and take pleasure in athletics and arts and hanging out.

DF: Both professionally and personally, what are you passionate about?
RC: Professionally, at this stage in my life, I’m passionate about helping other people pursue their passions. I think that’s what education is for — helping students learn the art of passion and the science of passion and the skills and determination and research skills and execution skills and hard work. I’m passionate about that for students, but also for faculty and for staff. I am a great lover of the arts, and I’m very happy to be in a school with such strong arts programs and in a city with great arts programs and close to New York and Washington D.C. I’ve never been in a school with a dance program, and I love dance, so I’m very excited about that. And I’m fairly passionate about fitness — I work out everyday. And then I’m a passionate reader. I just like to read — novels, philosophy, history.

DF: What would make your perfect day?
RC: It’d probably start with a long hike in Crum Woods and then maybe a breakfast or coffee with faculty and administrators working on a project, maybe planning a project of sustainability. I won’t say the students for breakfast because they’re probably asleep [laughs]. Then, I’d love to attend a class or maybe help teach a class with students on a subject, say, ‘Globalization, Economics, and Religion’ — I love those topics. Probably having lunch at Sharples informally with whoever’s there.
I can’t imagine a day in my life without a lot of administrative meetings, so I’d probably have this great day on the budget and come up with all sorts of win-win solutions. And then I might run into some Swarthmore alumni — the alumni here are fascinating. Maybe I’d go to Bennet Lorber’s art exhibition at the Muse. Bennett Lorber is an epidemiologist at Temple, but he’s also quite a gifted artist. And then maybe I’d go have coffee with another alum, a lawyer downtown or something like that. And then I’d come back to a performance in the amphitheater. That would be perfect.