Few people who look like Ajay Nair lead colleges. Less than 17 percent of campus chief executives are nonwhite. Asians and Asian Americans make up just 2 percent of them, according to data from the American Council on Education.
When Nair, who’s Indian American, became president of Arcadia University last year, he was the only person of color in the executive cabinet. Now, less than a year and a half later, 40 percent of his team are people of color, and 60 percent are women. His governing board’s racial diversity has jumped by nearly 20 percent.
But ultimately it’s not about percentages, he says. It’s about having leaders who better reflect the backgrounds and points of view of the student body. It’s about “diversity of thought.”
Nair, 45, is a scholar of race and ethnicity who has spoken out in support of student activists’ demands for more-inclusive campuses. He has been a faculty member and administrator at several elite colleges, including Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. While they are considered among the best institutions in the country, he says, he believes they have fewer incentives to focus on systemic change, because they have already made it, so to speak.
If that makes you uncomfortable, then I’ve done my job successfully.
Arcadia, on the other hand — a 3,700-student liberal-arts college outside of Philadelphia where about one-third of undergraduates are first-generation and most receive need-based financial aid — is closer to the average American institution. Not resource-rich, but not struggling, and trying to figure out its 21st-century identity.
So Arcadia is better suited, Nair believes, to serve as a model for diversifying campus leadership. (The university had four presidents in seven years before his arrival. So Arcadia also “needed leadership desperately,” he says.)
Nair spoke with The Chronicle about why the diversity gap matters, how he diversified his cabinet, and his own experience rising through academe as a person of color.
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Before you decided to become a college president, how aware were you of the diversity gap in leadership?
Painfully aware. Even as an undergraduate, I was aware that there weren’t people who looked like me in administrative or faculty roles, especially in the social sciences. That’s not to say I didn’t have any people of color in the classroom environment, but it was so, so few. And the people who were in the administrative ranks were in diversity roles — chief diversity officers, or multicultural affairs. That’s terrific. But certainly not presidents and provosts. I knew something wasn’t right. Because I looked around, and the student body was relatively diverse. There was a huge disconnect.
Once I became a faculty member and administrator, I became very aware, because of how I was treated — how I felt as though I had to change and adapt who I was in order to be successful, when others didn’t always have to do that in the same way. And it really bothered me.
How were you treated?
I have always felt as though it was my responsibility to do advocacy work, no matter what my rank was. If you see something that is wrong, that violates the institution’s ethics, you should try to do something about it, even if you are an employee of the institution. It doesn’t mean you have to strike or protest or have a sit-in, but you should voice your concerns.
I did that as a young professional. The response I got from a higher-up was that I should “act more Asian.” My response was: “What does that mean?” The response back was: “You really shouldn’t take on this sort of activist role and express yourself in this way.” I would’ve been OK with being reamed out — “It’s so unprofessional, what you’re doing” — but to bring it into my identity and say, “That’s just not how you’re supposed to act, based on how you look,” it floored me. I thought, “OK, I’ve got to go somewhere else. I’ve got to leave.”
I could have said, “I should just keep my mouth shut and play the game.” Which a lot of people do. They want to keep their jobs. Instead, I decided that institution wasn’t for me anymore. Every cover letter I’ve written from that point on, even my most recent one, has included this line: “I’m seeking an institution whose values are aligned with my own.”
That moment represents for me how desperately higher ed needs to change and evolve.
As a president, what does it feel like to have all this attention on your identity?
I take the responsibility really seriously. You’re serving as a role model for lots of people, whether you like it or not. It’s a difference-maker. Not just for students of color, but for all students. It challenges stereotypes. It changes the way we think about the world.
The moment it really hit me was during my inauguration. My family was a part of it. I wore traditional Indian clothing. For me, it was a celebration of Arcadia’s achievement and openness to looking at different styles of leadership and thinking about the future in a really progressive way. It became less about my presidency and more about where the institution is headed. It was just a “wow” moment.
I didn’t want to assume a leadership role and have to give up part of myself to do that. I told the board during the interview process: What you see is what you get. If that makes you uncomfortable, then I’ve done my job successfully. We’re not going to maintain the status quo. We’re going to reimagine the institution, together.
So you come to Arcadia, and you have the diversity gap on your mind. Where do you start?
The first natural place is to look at my own leadership team. It doesn’t mean I have to have certain percentages of race or gender. I’m really thinking about it in terms of diversity of thought and style. If you do it that way, you end up with great diversity across the board in terms of identity. It just happens. Once you have that kind of thought leadership for the institution, they will begin to dismantle the kinds of oppressive systems that may exist.
Another thing that we’re doing: We’re calling it “JEDI": justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. I brought together faculty members, staff members, and alumni, and I asked them how we can reorient the institution. We spent nearly a year talking through it. We ended up saying, “These are not going to be aspirational values — we’re going to live these values.” At every other institution I’ve been, whenever students would say, “You said your values are this,” we’d always say, “Oh, those are aspirational.” Not that we’re not going to fail occasionally at Arcadia, but we’ll be able to call ourselves out and take responsibility for it.
What did it take to diversify your cabinet so much in just a year?
All of the interview processes were not what you typically find in higher ed at the executive level, which are really insular. There were open forums for these candidates for almost all of the searches. We used a search consultant as well. Creating a diverse pool — people say it’s really hard to do. It’s actually not. The hard part is creating a diverse pool of applicants who all could win the job, so that you’re not tokenizing candidates. When these candidates came in, it wasn’t as though people were like, “Yeah, we had to bring that person in to claim diversity.” They actually had a shot at it, like everybody else, because they were exceptionally talented.
And then setting expectations with the search committee. So if you’re looking for a CFO, obviously they have finance and administration experience. But I told the committee, “I also want you to help me recruit a wonderful university citizen. Let’s think about what that means and talk about it.” That changed the conversation pretty dramatically. Then I took it a step further. I really wanted them to think about who could have a lasting impact on the institution. Not someone who’s just going to come in with a fancy pedigree and say, “We’ll tweak things here and there” but not really change anything. I also said to them, “Let’s do away with the idea that we want to find a good fit.” That’s so loaded. We don’t want the person to fit in, actually.
The provost that I hired is from American University; he was dean of communications. The provost is a white man. But if you talk to him, his understanding of diversity and inclusion work is just phenomenal. He is enlightened. People always criticize and say, “Oh, you’re just hiring people of color even if they’re not the best for the job.” That’s not what we’re doing at all.
If higher education doesn’t fix its leadership-diversity problem, what are the consequences?
Higher education will be stagnant. It will miss out on opportunities for innovation and creativity, and for really enhancing our efforts to improve student success through mentorship. One of the biggest challenges that we face right now is around the idea of open expression and debate. If the institution’s leadership doesn’t reflect that level of diversity of thought and lived experiences, it’s not going to translate into an intellectually rich environment. That may be the most compelling reason for us to do this, because that’s the bedrock of U.S. higher education, isn’t it? That we can exchange ideas and discover new ways of knowing and understanding. You can’t do that without diversity in your leadership.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
