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Volume CXXXI, Number 21 |
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Chabotar named president of Guilford
BELINDA J. LOVETT
ORIENT STAFF
After teaching 40 college presidents a year since 1990
as a faculty member of the Harvard Seminar for New Presidents, Treasurer
Kent Chabotar has finally decided to become a president himself.
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| Kent Chabotar has been appointed as the eighth president of Guilford College in North Carolina. (Bowdoin Orient) |
Chabotar has been appointed as the eighth president of Guilford
College, a liberal arts college located in Greensboro, North Carolina.
In addition to his presidential responsibilities, Chabotar
will also join the Guilford faculty as a professor of political science.
Guilford College was founded in 1837 by the Quakers and
is the third-oldest co-educational higher education institute in the country.
The college remains affiliated with the Quaker religion and has a student
body of approximately 1500.
Chabotar announced in October of last year that he would
be leaving Bowdoin in June of this year, ending eleven years as treasurer
of the College.
When asked whether or not he thought last October that he
might be a college president less than a year later, Chabotar said, "It
was one of the things that I thought might happen, but that wasn't what
I was hanging my entire career goal on."
After teaching college presidents for twelve years, Chabotar
said, "It's been dawning on me, 'I could do this. I could do this
job. You guys aren't that special.'…And obviously working with Edwards
for ten or eleven years,…that gave me some hope that I could pull
it off, too."
Chabotar said that he had also considered a wide variety
of other options: taking a position as a provost at a university, a CEO
of a student loan corporation, or the treasurer of Amherst or Dartmouth;
working in investment funds; or joining the faculty at Harvard or some
other institution.
Another option, he said, would have been for him to do nothing. "Frankly,
if something really good hadn't come along, I would have done that,"
he said.
When asked why he decided to remain in higher education, Chabotar said,
"I think it's because it's what I was going to do. I think that there
are fates in the lives of men and women. I really do believe that.…I
do think I was fated to stay in higher ed. a) because I really like it
b) because I've built up a lot of experience that I didn't want to go
to waste and c) because the opportunity came along to stay in higher ed.
I think if any one of those three had not been there, I wouldn't have."
Chabotar also said that his real love in higher education
is teaching, but he enjoys the administrative parts as well. "I find
just teaching without administration to not be as cool," he said.
Chabotar said that he hopes he will be able to do a competent
job serving as both a president and a professor. "I'm single…so
I can put into class and students a lot of the emotional and physical
energy that many people put into their families…I would be very disappointed
if I can't pull it off."
When asked about the differences between Bowdoin and Guilford,
Chabotar said that they are both very similar but that Guilford has one
sixth of the resources that Bowdoin has. He also said that Guilford is
behind Bowdoin in terms of a residential life plan, but like Bowdoin,
there are no fraternities. The Guilford campus is also three times larger
than Bowdoin's.
Chabotar described the Guilford campus by saying, "It's like putting
Colby down in North Carolina…Very Georgian. Big columns."
Guilford's financial situation is very similar that of Bowdoin's
when Chabotar first arrived at the College in the early 1990s. Bowdoin
claimed to have a balanced budget, just as Guilford does now. But neither
budgets were really balanced.
"If you deter maintenance, you jack up the tuition
prices very high, and you overspend from endowment, two of the three of
which Guilford does, and all three of which Bowdoin did, the budget isn't
balanced," Chabotar said.
According to Chabotar, Guilford has a resource problem. Their budget is
half that of Bowdoin's, and their endowment is one seventh that of Bowdoin's.
Guilford just completed a $50 million capital campaign, whereas Bowdoin's
most recent capital campaign raised $136 million. Because the size of
Guilford's student body is similar to that of Bowdoin's, Guilford's resources
are far more stretched.
"You can imagine that…the same opulence that we
have, they can only aspire to," Chabotar said.
While Chabotar's new position will present him with a number
of financial challenges, he is not leaving because Bowdoin no longer has
its own financial challenges.
"All colleges are like open boats on the ocean…and
these are treacherous seas. Bowdoin is as aware of the limitations and
the need for financial aid money, the need to keep affordable, the need
to attract students from across the country, the need to invest in IT,
student life, etc. The task is never done. I think that's clear up here,
even ten years later. Guilford is the same. There's a palpable sense of
unfinished business."
One major difference between Bowdoin and Guilford is that
Guilford is a Quaker college. Chabotar, who is Catholic, said he feels
that his values will fit in well with the Quaker religion. "Students
will tell you that I'm very truthful, very candid. I just tell you what
I think. That's what Quakers believe, too. It's what they call truth-telling.
I believe in consensual decision-making if possible…[The budget]
has been unanimous here every year for eleven years, and the president
has never changed a dime of the recommendation. I believe in that stuff…I
also believe in tolerance a lot. Look at Maine. Mainers are known for
live and let live. Quakers are the same."
Regarding the position of president, Chabotar said, "It's not as powerful as people think. I think your responsibilities are a hell of a lot more significant than your authority. I think that you're more of a moral leader and exemplar than you are a top-down field marshal."