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Interview appeared in the Boston
Business Journal, March 25–31, 2005
Reporter Tom Witkowski
Gloria Nemerowicz
Class Appeal
As president of Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Gloria Nemerowicz
helped the women's liberal arts school grow by 70 percent to 500
students. In March, Nemerowicz also received an award for diversity
achievement from the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, and the
school has merited national recognition as well. Nemerowicz spoke
about her accomplishments at Pine Manor post-secondary education
for women with reporter Tom Witkowski.
How diverse has the school become?
We are about 10 percent international students from about 20 different
countries. We are about 55 percent women of color from the United
States and the rest Caucasian. The women of color are African-American,
Haitian, Asian, Latina, Cape Verdean. What doesn't get measured
by any ranking system is socioeconomics Eighty percent of our population
gets some kind of help financially and a significant percentage
would really be considered from lower-income groups. About 30 percent
come directly from the Boston public schools.
What steps as president have you taken since
1996 to increase and maintain diversity?
We did a lot of legwork just in and around Boston, partnering with
other agencies that are also interested in diverse populations of
women.
I now have the president of the YWCA on the board. (We have been)
trying to raise the awareness of people in the Boston public schools
that Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill is an appropriate place
and welcoming place for students graduating from the Boston public
schools; There was a lot of outreach, and there still is. We also
reduced tuition, not insignificantly, in 1998 by 34 percent. We
were fortunate to get a $4 million unrestricted bequest from an
alum who passed away. This is what really gave the board the courage...it
was a beginning point. It clearly was an outreach strategy, a message
strategy, a volume strategy, more people paying fewer dollars.
What was the tuition?
Just about what it is now, and it's about $23,000 to $24,000 for
tuition, room and board. We're just about back to where we were
seven years ago.
How do you keep costs down?
We're going to bring together some other colleges like Pine Manor,
in terms of size, small size, small endowment and at least the desire
to diversify and open up the campuses to broader populations....
We're trying to create a new financial model that relies more heavily
on philanthropy, more heavily on people wanting to see these kind
of schools thrive and survive.
What was your reaction to Harvard President
Lawrence Summers' comments about women and the fields of math and
science?
Science is one of the majors that was added last to the Pine Manor
BA curriculum— this was before I got here — and it now
vies for first place (in popularity). It's a very strong major.
Do you think the gender conversation is worth having, from an academic
point of view?
We've had it. And we've had it about race. Free discussion of ideas
is fine, but there's lots of evidence, and I'm living in a laboratory
of evidence right here.
HIGHLIGHTS ON NEMEROWICZ
Earned undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees in sociology
at Rutgers University.
Created an institute on women's leadership at Wells College in
Aurora, N.Y.
Author of "Children's Perception of Gender and Work Roles"
and coauthor of two other books.
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