NEWS & CITY LIFE
P r o fi l e | By Barry Fain
A New Era in the Arts RISD’s 18th president Crystal Williams gears up to tackle challenges of inclusivity and carry out the art school’s legacy
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ProvidenceOnline.com • August 2022
RISD’s 18th president Crystal Williams
graduates need to possess the flexibility to thrive in our rapidly changing world. So when the school assembled its presidential search committee, seeking a candidate to tackle these challenges, it paid special attention to ensure they represented all facets of its community: faculty members, administrators, trustees, and, of course, students. Williams was chosen in a national search that included well over 100 interviewees. Her background in both teaching and inclusion are indeed impressive. Williams spent her first 10 years of teaching at Reed College on the West Coast, where she honed her pedagogical skills and also developed her passion as a faculty activist working with peers on equity and diversity. Her upward trajectory then turned eastward with teaching and administrative stops at Bates College in Maine and later Boston University, where she became the
school’s first vice president and associate provost for community and inclusion. Her reputation in the academic community is that of a warm, collegial, and collaborative thought leader, a respected consultant on inclusion and equity issues, and a passionate and patient champion for developing solutions to educational issues. But what makes president Williams stand out as a particularly exciting choice for RISD is a background dramatically different from her 17 predecessors and many of her peers. Adopted at an early age by an educator and musician couple, she was raised in Detroit and Madrid. In her bio-film presentation to the RISD student body, she details her unusual path to the presidency. “I confess it took me about 10 years before I finally got my college degree,” she says with a laugh. “During that time, I guess you can say I learned by living. I ran a
Photos by (L) Jo Sittenfeld, (R) Matt Watson
Now officially on the job and with her first June graduation behind her, the 18th president of the Rhode Island School of Design, Crystal Williams, has settled comfortably into her downtown office. In appointing its first Black president, RISD is following the path of several other respected arts institutions, from the hiring of Eric Pryor at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts to Kymberly Pinder at Yale. With a BA from New York University and MFA from Cornell University, Williams arrives at the school with solid academic credentials. She’s an award-winning poet and essayist with four published collections of poems; has been widely anthologized; and was the recipient of several artistic fellowships, grants, and honors. Early in her career, she excelled in national poetry slam competitions. In her initial communication with RISD students, one asked the obvious question: “But what do you know about art?” Flashing an infectious smile, she admitted, “To be frank, I can’t even draw a triangle. In fact, I don’t do doodles well either. But, I have spent over 20 years as an English professor and pride myself on being able to work productively with my students, trying to coax out of them what they are trying to say even when they feel they lack the actual words to say it.” Recently there has been recognition within the art world, from museums, collectors, and, especially, students that something must be done in terms of creating more diversity and inclusion. Following RISD student-organized public protests two years ago calling for a commitment to diversity among both students and faculty, as well as more affordable tuition, the school is well attuned to nationwide efforts for increased equity. Among the great art schools – and RISD is arguably at the top of that list – are two additional challenges: an educational commitment to the craftsmanship that underlies the arts as well as developing what RISD calls the “whole artist,” knowing their
