16 minute read
The Philosopher President
Marjorie Hass leads Rhodes College through a most unusual year.
BY ANNA TRAVERSE FOGLE
The gates leading to Rhodes College’s campus have been pulled shut and locked. Only one entrance remains open for faculty and staff use; the parking lots are dotted with a few stray cars. Old oak trees, their generous shade
dappling the light and cooling the air, outnumber the people. Since springtime, the
Rhodes campus has been as much idea as place: like Ithaca for Ulysses, a space in the memory that its community longs to return to, knowing they’ll be changed by the journey back.
On March 11, 2020, when only one covid-19 case had been detected in Memphis (as of this writing, Memphis has been home to nearly 30,000 cases), Dr. Marjorie Hass, president of the college since July 2017, announced to the Rhodes community that the remainder of the spring semester would not be conducted on campus. Instead of returning from Spring Break, students would need to remove their belongings from their
dorm rooms and scatter to wherever they called home. Refl ecting values that she and her covid-19 incident team considered in arriving at the diffi cult decision, Hass wrote, “We are deeply committed to maintaining the excellent teaching and learning standards at Rhodes College and addressing this unprecedented situation as equitably as possible.”
The Rhodes College campus.
By the time Rhodes converted its spring semester to virtual, remote learning — one of the fi rst colleges in this region to do so — that incident team had been monitoring the pandemic for two months. Over Zoom, Hass tells me that when she and her team fi rst became aware of the pandemic, in mid-January, they had a sense that the novel coronavirus would be a concern for their community members abroad. “Even though Rhodes is located here in Memphis,” she points out, “we’re a global operation in that we have students and faculty always studying in all parts of the world, and we recruit globally.”
In mid-March — Spring Break — numerous American cities were reporting outbreaks resulting from community transmission. Rhodes students having dispersed for the week, Hass says that for her and her team, “the question became, ‘Can we in good conscience bring them back here?’” Would it be safe for the students, for faculty, for staff , for the broader community? What would the school do if — or more accurately,
when — the virus hitched a ride back to campus in a student’s breath?
“We sat down to talk about it, and the fi rst answer was sort of — well, we couldn’t imagine not continuing. We’re a college; it’s what we do! But I asked our team to do some tabletop exercises,” Hass recalls. She asked of them to “sit down and say, ‘We’ve spoken with the health department and we have a case on campus. ere will be no way to avoid that. What will we do?’ As soon as they began the tabletop exercise that was designed to play out step-by-step what would happen — who would we call? Who would we notify? How would we manage a quarantine? — we very quickly realized we would be in over our heads.”
By the summer, when the college needed to make a decision about its fall semester, Rhodes had entered into a partnership with Baptist Memorial Health Care to manage the virus on a residential campus. ere would be preventive measures, symptom monitoring, regular testing, contact tracing, and care for the sick.
In a release issued by the college on June 24th, Dr. Steto my desk, there are so many people who are on hold phen relkeld, medical director of Baptist’s infectious and can’t move forward until I make that call.” She asks disease prevention program, said, “ is is a wonderful herself what details and context she needs in order to opportunity to help one of the country’s fi nest institumake a good, wise decision. If she struggles with a tions welcome students, faculty and staff back to camdecision, she works through why she’s experiencing pus safely.” But again, Hass says, she had a sense that intellectual or emotional friction. she and her team needed to “sit down today and look “If I fi nd myself having trouble, why am I having trouat how this will actually play out — to try in real time ble making a decision? Sometimes it’s because I don’t to imagine the scenarios.” e decision, this time, was have enough information,” she says. “And sometimes I simpler. Heartbreaking, but simple. recognize it’s hard to make a decision because you’re
Never waste a crisis.” That’s what Mardecisions college presidents are making — there’s no jorie Hass told me over hot tea on a September happy option. Shutting down the campus that you love morning last year. She had reached out and that you have devoted your life and while this magazine was in the early days your career to serving is heartbreaking. of a maelstrom. Memphis had printed a “Our students are I had enough information if I paid attencover image that many took to be insensifiguring things out and tion to it, but this was about choosing tive and off ensive, raising questions about our organizational values and processes. paving the way. I think between two heartbreaking options. You recognize why it’s painful — and We did not set out to cause harm — yet we are going to learn a you have to make the decision.” that was the cover’s eff ect. When I saw lot from them.” Rhodes’ announcements about the Hass’ name in my inbox, I half-expected spring semester going virtual, and then to read a note about how disappointed the fall semester, too, were among the she was by me, by the magazine, by all of it. I took sefi rst such public announcements in the South. Her riously the anger many people expressed, but after a approach is proactive by design. But Hass is quick to time, anger burns off , like fi re on an oil slick, while clarify that the decisions she’s made at Rhodes are the disappointment adheres and internalizes. ones she feels are right for this particular college and
Instead, she expressed empathy for what I was facing its particular community, not what she thinks could as a leader and particularly as a woman leader, care for or should be translated to other colleges, other comhow the heaps of public scorn were aff ecting me as a munities. “Everybody is making decisions in their own human, and advice: to be courageous, to be bold, and context,” she says. She counts herself fortunate that she to use this moment of disruption — this crisis — for good. She did not excuse our organizational crisis, but rather helped me to reframe it as an infl ection point. I’ve kept that advice — never waste a crisis — at the fore of my mind and heart since. Crises can be clarifying, if we allow them.
Hass is a philosopher by training, and it shows in her handling of the role of college president. She taught philosophy for over a decade at Muhlenberg College, in Pennsylvania, where she also directed the Center for Ethics, and holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in philosophy from the University of Illinois – Champaign-Urbana.
Listening to Hass explain her thought processes, I can tell she distills her words carefully; she is measured, deliberate. She speaks in paragraphs.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in my career thinking about decision-making,” she tells me. ere are, she says, two core elements to the art of decision-making. “One is what you pay attention to. e other is how and when you make decisions when they’re yours to make.” Plenty of the decisions that need making at Rhodes are not Hass’ to make. “We have a great team, wonderful people, perfectly capable of making decisions,” after all, she says.
By the time a situation requiring a decision arrives in the office of the president, it’s likely to be mission-critical. Once the thing in question is on her desk, “the ability to make a decision carefully, thoughtfully, and with all due speed is essential. By the time it gets choosing between two bad options. In this case, the
President Marjorie Hass
need only make decisions for Rhodes. And, she says, movement — watching women lead because they’ve “I want to make it very clear that I don’t judge other been called to lead, not because necessarily they’ve presidents or other leadership teams.” been handed the title.”
Holding certain principles like guiding stars helps I ask what she makes of the reports about woman-led keep her thinking consistent and the organization on countries, and what it means to her to be a woman course. From the start of the pandemic, Hass says, she leader facing these questions, making these tough calls. and her team made a point to set forth their values both “It’s overly simplistic,” she responds, “to say, ‘Women internally and publicly. In their fi rst meeting, she says, lead this way, men lead that way, people who are out“We sat down and said, ‘Okay, we’re goside of the gender binary lead this way.’ ing to have diffi cult decisions. What are But I do think there are diff erent kinds the principles we’re going to use?’” ese “I’ve been very fortunate of expectations around women. Women turned out to be prioritizing health and to be at institutions who rise to leadership positions often safety, fi rst and foremost; maintaining a commitment to equity and diversity; — Rhodes absolutely have to be particularly skilled, often have to combine the best of what we think of maintaining academic excellence; and among them — that as women’s traits, like warmth and the maintaining the excellence of faculty and staff . embrace who I am as a ability to build community, with what we think of as the best of male traits, to lead
Not everyone in the Rhodes commuwhole person.” and to be decisive. at combination, I nity greeted the school’s decisions with think, comes as a great help.” e comwarmth and respect, at least at the start. bining of traits — picking the best and “When you’re in pain,” she says, as many were in the most useful characteristics from across the spectrum early days of the pandemic, “it’s natural to reach out — makes for a stronger amalgam, and stronger leaders. with criticism, to have your fi rst thought be, ‘Couldn’t And it’s not just women who can make conscious decithey have done something else?’” As the months have sions about what to include from their leadership styles, gone on and the situation has evolved, even those who and what to leave aside. Women can embody a conscious objected at fi rst have come to respect the choices Hass amalgam of traits, says Hass, but so too “there are men had made. While they still may not agree with her who can embody it, and there are certainly people outchoices, she says, “Many of them sent me notes and said side the gender binary who can embody it.” She’s just they respect the way we did this.” fi nished a book, coming out next summer from Johns
Over the summer, a flurry of articles Women in Higher Education. e book is a summation of was published remarking on the fact that counher mentoring work and workshops. Which is to say, tries led by women seemed to be faring better with she’s given these topics quite a bit of thought. the coronavirus. From Angela Merkel in Germany and For Hass, and seems a central word and idea. Her Sanna Marin in Finland to Jacinda Ardern in New Zealeadership style isn’t about leaving parts of herself at land and Tsai Ing-Wen in Taiwan, women-led countries the door, but rather inviting all of herself in. is and controlled their outbreaks more proactively than malethat. She says she shows up on the Rhodes campus as led countries of similar size and structure. a “Jewish woman, as a mother, as a wife, as somebody
According to a New York Times article published with spiritual beliefs, as somebody who believes in May 15, 2020, Amanda Taub writes that while we should building community. And that isn’t seen as diminishing “resist drawing conclusions about women leaders from my capacities as a leader. I’ve been very fortunate to be a few exceptional individuals acting in exceptional at institutions — Rhodes absolutely among them — circumstances, … experts say that the women’s sucthat embrace who I am as a whole person.” cess may still off er valuable lessons about what can Hopkins University Press, called A Leadership Guide for help countries weather not just this crisis, but others in the future.” W hat in your own life, I ask Hass, in your background, have you drawn on for wisdom
Writing in the Harvard Business Review on June during these diffi cult months? “ is is a moment where 26, 2020, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Avivah you have to draw on everything,” she answers. When Wittenberg-Cox likewise note the complications in she had just been named Rhodes president, Hass was didrawing sweeping conclusions from limited data — but agnosed with breast cancer. She responded with action go on, “Could this be the moment … to replace our old, and honesty, drawing on every resource at her disposal. obsolete leadership archetypes with more pragmatic She’s trained in philosophy, guided by her Jewish faith and meritocratic models?” and spirituality, supported by a team whose caliber she
Hass has noticed that people — both within and mentions several times in our conversation, strengthwithout the defi ned Rhodes community — are hungry ened by her family. (Hass’ husband, Dr. Lawrence Hass, for what she calls “visible leadership.” In her view, “the is a sleight-of-hand magician and former philosophy gulf of guidance in how to respond to this pandemic professor himself, ey are the parents of two adult — the gulf at the federal level, the gulf in other areas children, Cameron and Jessica.) “Making such existen— has left people very much at sea.” Women, meantial decisions for your institution,” she observes, “takes while, she believes are “very good at seeing a gap and a great deal of energy and a great deal of humility.” stepping in to fi ll it. We’re seeing that both in terms of She listens to wisdom from Rhodes’ most senior trustthe pandemic and in terms of the Black Lives Matter ees, and she listens to wisdom from the housekeepers
who clean the college’s facilities. “You have to draw on everything” — and everyone. Because she and her team identifi ed equity as a key value when this process began, she says, “we were not tempted to make decisions that would protect the health of one group of our community, but expose others to greater risk.” Instead, they have chosen to think holistically — considering the perspectives of housekeepers, students, faculty, staff , trustees, everyone.
I ask, what gives you hope? What about this strange and diffi cult year has been energizing rather than exhausting?
“Our students,” she says, “are fi guring things out and paving the way. I think we’re all going to learn a lot from them.” ey are sussing out in real time, thanks to the conversion to remote learning, what it means to emerge into adulthood without the trappings of independence and adulthood usually aff orded college students. How do you fi nd your newly independent self when your introduction to college takes place at a computer screen in your childhood bedroom?
She’s keenly aware of what’s lost when instruction shifts away from the classroom. As a philosopher, Hass has studied phenomenology, and understands that “the being-with, physically, is part of how we know things. ere are huge pieces of knowledge and information that aren’t available to us in this [virtual] format, no matter how hard we try.”
What else gives her hope? “Every time I see a person wearing a mask,” she says. Mask-wearing is, she goes on, a choice that we make out of concern for our neighbors, for our community. When we see others wearing masks, we know that they have made a choice to protect us. Despite all the social distancing and mask-wearing, there’s a sense of fellow feeling in members of a community taking steps to protect each other.
At Rhodes, Hass says she is inspired by “how deeply everyone that has a role to play has stepped up to the plate. … Our team has been working every day [over the summer]. Our students who are in leadership roles, our whole community has stepped forward and said, ‘We recognize this is a moment for Rhodes College, and we’re going to be here for it.’”
We are confronting multiple pandemics in 2020: covid-19, and also deep-seated racism that badly needs rooting out, not to mention employment and economic crises. Hass has said that much is determined by what we choose to pay attention to, and she points out that, in 2020, we are using our collective energy not to distract ourselves from diffi culty, but to devote time to conversations with others and with ourselves about race and racism. It’s painful, she says, and “as a white woman, it’s called for a lot of personal self-refl ection, refl ection on behalf of my community and of Rhodes. But it’s also inspiring, and it’s fi lled me with a sense of hope and possibility for the future that is often challenging at this moment to fi nd.” at piece of advice Hass loaned me last year fl oats to the surface of my mind: Never waste a crisis.
The iron gates will open again, someday. Each week, Hass and her team speak with
public-health experts to hone their sense of where Rhodes stands in terms of being able to move back to campus, creak open the gates, give the oak trees some company. First-year students have been told that they may receive an invitation to spend time on campus later this fall, though academic learning will remain remote; this would give incoming students a chance, at least, to feel what it is to wake up and go about their days in some semblance of the way they might have imagined college, pre-pandemic.
For now, Hass is focusing on gratitude — for her health and the health of her family, for work that she fi nds fulfi lling, for the unexpected opportunity to spend time in one place. Most semesters, her work requires her to spend a lot of nights on the road. She fi nds a certain luxury now in waking up in her own bed, eating breakfast at her own table, and sharing space with her husband, who also travels frequently in non-covid times. Now, she’s grounded, and fi nding the experience grounding.
“Not every single moment of every day,” she says, “but certainly in moments every day, the overwhelming feeling I have is gratitude.”
