News
Getting to know President David Wippman
By Haley Lynch '17
September 1, 2016
Tags news
THE SPECTATOR: In this interview with Hamilton College’s new president, David Wippman, we discuss his previous work experiences, hobbies and family life. As students are just getting settled into the school year, we’ll be talking about what Wippman is looking forward to as he begins his tenure on the Hill.
I’m hoping to start with a couple of Orientation-inspired “Getting to Know You” questions, such as: What’s your favorite kind of ice cream?
DW: I like mint chocolate chip; I’m pretty passionate about that.
Can you tell us a little bit about your family?
Sure. I’m divorced, and I have two daughters. One works at Food & Wine magazine, she’s living in New York City, and then I have a daughter who works at the Four Seasons Hotel in D.C. I had this vision that I’d be able to stay at Four Seasons Hotels all over the country, but it hasn’t worked out that way.
Do you feel that you’re settling into Clinton pretty well?
Yeah, I think so. It’s a very friendly and receptive community. The students have been fantastic, we have a great faculty here who have been really hospitable and eager to help me acclimate and adjust, and the staff’s been great. And I’ve had the opportunity to meet with some of the leaders of Clinton and the surrounding area and hear their perspective about the College, too.
What do you like to do when you’re not working?
I like cycling a lot, and I’ve found this is just a fabulous area for cycling. You can go in any direction and you’re almost instantly in great cycling terrain. I have found a group of people to cycle with occasionally, and there are some faculty who like to cycle and are very good cyclists and kindly let me come with them. I’ve also gone with students a couple of times. When I was here in May I rode with the Hamilton Cycling Club, and I also went on a trip this past Saturday with one of the Orientation groups, Cycling the Mohawk Valley, which was a lot of fun.
Has it been different, coming from such a large school, into a smaller community like Hamilton?
I have to admit that the University of Minnesota is just slightly larger than Hamilton College. I think it’s got 66,000 students spread over five campuses, and on the Minneapolis campus where I was, it’s like a small city. It’s a big operation, but the unit I was in—the Law School—is actually smaller than Hamilton College, only about 750 students. So I was at a place that was both bigger and smaller than the College, but I’m finding this is a wonderful opportunity, given our size, to connect with students on an individual basis as much as I can. I think that’s one of the great strengths of the residential liberal arts college model, is that faculty and students can really interact both inside and outside the classroom and get to know each other.
Speaking of getting to know the students, did you have a favorite teacher, growing up?
I did, I had a teacher in high school who I think was inspirational. This was a different world, but I was in a high school of 2,700 students over three grades—10, 11 and 12—and there was only one A.P. class. He taught this A.P. History class, and he really inspired students to think creatively and critically. He got us past just sort of rote learning and really challenged us. He had really high expectations for the students in the class, and I think all of us wanted to live up to those expectations. That to me was a model teacher: someone who really believed that his students could perform at a high level, and because he believed it, we did.
Did that teacher influence your decision to become a teacher or to follow this career path?
Not directly. When I was an undergraduate, I loved college, and I decided—I was a literature major—and I decided I wanted to pursue this as a graduate student. So I did go to graduate school at Yale in a Ph.D. program, but I discovered there that it was different doing it professionally than doing it as an undergraduate, and I wanted something that was a little more engaged with policy on a day-to-day basis than what I was studying, which was medieval literature. So I migrated over to the Law School and got a law degree and practiced for a few years. The few years actually turned into 10 years, because I liked what I was doing. But then I thought if I wanted to make that shift back into academia which I had always intended, I needed to do it now. So I made it to teaching at that point.
What kind of law were you practicing for those 10 years?
We had a really unusual law practice. We were representing developing countries. We thought there was an itch for a firm that was willing to accept less in terms of salary in order to represent developing countries at the same level that clients who had lots of resources could get. We did a lot of work for Nicaragua, Guatemala, the Philippines, Liberia and number of other countries. It was a really interesting experience.
Are there experiences that you had there that you will bring to bear as the President at Hamilton?
I think there are a number of things that are applicable in terms of leadership experiences. You know, how do you develop an institution, how do you motivate people; those things I think are transferrable across different domains. Some of the subject matter I learned I later incorporated into classes. I do hope to teach, while I’m here; International Law, which is the field that I practiced in. I taught that at Cornell, and Minnesota of course, so I’m hoping to teach that here as well.
When do you plan to offer your course?
I’m hoping to do it next year, and ideally I’d split the course with another faculty member, because part of my job is to travel, but I don’t want to cancel class and reschedule all the time. I like to teach. It keeps me engaged intellectually with the subject matter, and gives me a better understanding of what students are experiencing on a day-to-day basis. And also what faculty are engaged with. The problem is that to do teaching, well, it takes a lot of time, so I’ll have to balance that against the other responsibilities of the position.
Which of those responsibilities will you be prioritizing for your first year?
Getting to know the people, first and foremost, understanding the culture, the traditions, the history, and the opportunities and the needs of the College. I’ve been doing a number of things to try and do that; having all the faculty over to the house for dinner in small groups, so that I can get to know them as individuals. I’m trying to interact with students whenever I can, whether it’s at the dining hall, or informally at the gym, or cycling, or attending concerts or other events. I’ve been asking them about their experiences, trying to understand what they would like to see at the College. I’ve also spent quite a bit of time trying to engage the supporters of the College and the alumni generally. It’s good to hear their perspectives on the College and get their advice.
Is there any concern you’ve been hearing about most?
It depends on the constituency, but there are a number of themes that are emerging as things for me to think about, and for the College collectively to think about. One of them is, we’re having an interesting demographic shift at the College in terms of the faculty. There are a lot of people who have either recently reached or are about to reach retirement age. And so last year we did 13 searches for new faculty positions. I think this year it’ll be 14 or 15 such searches. And at a college our size, that’s a huge percentage of the faculty. I think the institutional research office forecasts that between 2015 and 2025, close to half of the faculty will be new to Hamilton College. So that’s both a challenge—we’re losing some phenomenally talented people who’ve built their careers here at Hamilton and provide all kinds of institutional wisdom and support—but on the other hand we’re in the position where we can recruit some fabulous new people. So thinking about how we take advantage of that opportunity, how we think about curricular innovation that might go along with some shifts in the makeup of the faculty, that’s one big set of issues.
Another has to do with the business model of higher education. As a liberal arts college with a residential campus, I think we provide the gold standard of higher education. This [is a] really high-touch model where students and faculty live and learn together and I think it’s phenomenal for education. But it’s not inexpensive. We and other colleges now have a comprehensive need that exceeds the median family income in the United States. We need to think about how to manage that going forward so that future generations will be able to access this caliber of education and benefit from it.
That’s something I’ve been thinking of asking you about: Some students have expressed concern that a need-blind admissions policy hasn’t been enough to help diversify the student body on campus. These concerns also apply as we get ready to hire a lot of new faculty: What are your ideas about how to help the campus continue to increase its diversity?
I think the decision to move to need-blind was a terrific step in the right direction. It was done in 2009, at a time when most places were in retrenchment mode because of the financial crisis and the associated decline in revenue that colleges were facing. Instead of going into retrenchment, Hamilton decided to move forward with need-blind admissions to meet the financial need of students. An outcome of that and a lot of other measures that the campus has put into place over the years is that our percentage of students of color has gone up very dramatically. I think it’s around 23 percent now. That’s gone up from 15 or 16 percent 10 years ago, so it’s pretty dramatic progress in just the last few years. There are more first-generation students on campus, more Pell Grant students on campus, I believe. So that’s been a lot of progress, but I think there’s still room for more progress there, and in terms of inclusion as well.
You mentioned something about that in your email on Thursday.
Yeah, so I’m talking to various members of the campus community about how we can further the progress that’s already been made in this area. Phyllis Breland has done a lot of good work in this, so we’re looking at different kinds of programs and initiatives that will further improve the situation.
In terms of the faculty composition, because we’re seeing so many retirements and we have so many opportunities to do hiring, there are many opportunities there to further diversify the faculty. We have some outside consultants who are helping us work with all the different units that are doing searches in order to make sure that diversity is an important consideration in the search process. So the College is really taking this on in a very serious and thoughtful way.
Another issue I had been hoping to ask you about is that the College, like many others, has been facing some issues with sexual harassment charges. In January the results of a national sexual assault campus climate survey suggested that Hamilton, while for the most part on par with other similar schools, had a slightly higher rate of reported sexual assault on campus. In spite of this, 81.5 percent of the victims reported not having used Hamilton’s own formal process to help handle the situation. What steps do you plan to take to help alleviate this issue?
As far as I’m concerned, one incident of sexual assault is one too many. It’s a hugely important issue and it’s one that’s gotten a lot of attention—and deservedly so—on campuses around the country, including here. You know, I’ve actually just been reviewing our policy on sexual assault because I want to make sure —I believe we’ve got a very good policy and set of processes in place, but I want to make sure that we can then work with people on campus to ensure that students know about the policies and the procedures in place and know that there is support available to them here and to take advantage of those policies should it become necessary.
Back to the more general stuff: What’s your basic vision for an ideal liberal arts college?
I’d say it looks pretty close to what Hamilton looks like. I really do think that this college is doing so many things right. It’s an opportunity to come into a college and say how can we build on what’s already been done. I don’t want to start two months in and say ‘Here’s a vision for the College.’ One thing I’ve learned is that this is a community that values participation, and I think that everyone wants to be a part in developing a shared vision for the future. So that’s one of the reasons I’m spending lots of time talking to people and listening to people.
Do you have something you’re looking forward to the most in the next coming year?
I think it’s really continuing to meet as many people as I can. It’s really been a lot of fun; we have such an interesting, engaged student body. They’re doing all kinds of things, they’re just fun to be with and to talk to and to get to know. The faculty’s the same. And our alumni —we have incredibly accomplished alumni from all walks of life. Just getting to know them and hearing their stories and about their experiences at Hamilton and how that shaped their careers and their lives has been great. I’m looking forward to more of that.
We’ll wrap up with one last question: Do you have a fun fact that you would like to share about yourself that we don’t know yet?
You may not know this: I did not graduate from high school. I am a high school dropout…Well that’s not quite the right word. I’m an incomplete. I skipped my senior year of high school and went to the University of Minnesota for the year and I went from there to Princeton. So I do have a college degree but I do not have a high school diploma.
Thank you so much for your time!