I want to focus on two exceptional leaders today.
Each year, I make a special award. The Presidential Award for Merit.
I do it in different settings depending on the circumstances and the recipients.
Recent awardees include Paul Hurley, Hilary Appel, Minxin Pei, and many other prominent faculty. DT (Dianna Graves) won the award years ago.
This year, my last, I wanted to take this occasion to give the award to two special leaders in our college, both for their individual achievement and for their collaboration and teamwork during an intensely productive time for the College.
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Together, they are key to the best leadership team in higher ed.
Each strong leaders, who understand vision, strategy, teamwork, resources, and execution.
Each strong leaders, who step up, surface challenges, take responsibility, build community, and earn trust.
Each strong leaders, who have had to learn and master dimensions of the College and its strategies.
Each strong leaders, who know how to get the facts, read the controlling texts and apply the spreadsheets, and find the right solution.
Each strong leaders, who are kind and funny, albeit in different ways.
Each strong leaders, who have been critical to the big steps: The integration of academic and student life. The creation of a revolutionary new integrated sciences program and the Robert Day Sciences Center and Roberts Campus expansion and development in the Sports Bowl.
Each strong leaders, who understand the little moments that are so critical: active listening, careful questions, strong intuition, follow-through commitments, judgment, and social warmth that builds community.
Each has built an outstanding career as the foundation for this pinnacle set of achievements.
One in the academic world as a leading teacher-scholar in labor economics.
One in the student life world as one of the leading innovators in student affairs.
The first winner of the Presidential Award for Merit this year is:
The James G. Boswell Professor of Economics, former chair of the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, former director of the Berger Institute, author of dozens of articles placed in the top journals, and winner of the European Association of Labor Economics Prize, and master teacher.
Heather Antecol, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty
Without even focusing on her vast achievements in her scholarship, center leadership, and department chair experience, when the history of the College is updated, I believe Heather will be known as the most productive Dean in the school’s history.
Heather is a powerhouse.
The architect of a long-term hiring strategy, the co-builder of new curricula, faculty development, and research programs, the master recruiter of the top, liberal arts faculty in the world.
Just look at the department of integrated sciences and her success in recruiting.
Just look at our outstanding recent hires in government that have once again elevated that department to greatness.
She is second to none in the combination of her multiple powers:
Her pure smarts in qualitative and quantitative reasoning, her rigorous attention to detail, her courage in facing new challenges and surfacing neglected ones, her tireless execution, and her simultaneous ability to build community and a great team.
And, I am most proud of her previously undiscovered talents in public speaking and the art of the inspired haiku.
She has been a powerful co-pilot on all of our major academic achievements and a constant rock of support and generous friend for me and Priya, and is so deserving of this honor.
Please join me in congratulating Heather on this special award.
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The second winner of the Presidential Award for Merit is:
Former Vice President for Student Affairs, former Acting President, and currently our Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer: Sharon Basso.
Sharon is one of the most impactful student affairs leaders in the country, with over four decades of experience, including service as Associate Vice Provost and Dean of Students at Lehigh University, where she oversaw over 18 departments and 60 professional and administrative staff.
We recruited her in 2016 to renovate CMC’s approach to student life as Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students.
Again, when the history of the college is updated, she and DT will be credited with the most dramatic improvements in student life in the College’s history, maybe any College’s history.
Sharon co-designed a program capable of supporting the culture we sought to preserve, aligning our student life program with our mission of responsible leadership through community, purpose, and play.
She stole DT from my office, her best move ever. Partnered with Vince Greer, whom we hired at the same time, and along with Nyree Gray, mentored Vince and DT. Built a world-class counseling capability with Jess Neilson. And created what I believe is the very best student affairs team in the country.
Our data on student belonging, friendliness, and reliance on friends for strong emotional support are peerless.
Sharon also built the most effective approach to public safety in the country, in collaboration with Brian Weir and his team.
Along with DT and our entire cabinet, she led us through COVID, often attending to students very specific needs for fixing a fuse or replacing a light bulb or mopping up from a broken pipe.
Sharon sees in people what many miss, and always has the perfect question to ask or funny joke or raw instinct for any situation.
At the pinnacle of her career in student affairs, she generously accepted a new role as the COO, and also served as acting president during my sabbatical in the fall of 2023.
In these experiences, she had to learn an entire new set of disciplines, from the challenges of our institutional nonpartisanship policy through the tough moments of October 7 and beyond, to taking responsibility for our facilities operation and then our construction projects last fall.
Her oversight on the Robert Day Sciences Center, and now front line responsibility with the great trustee and former board chair, David Mgrublian, for the Sports Bowl ... I’m not sure she ever thought she’d become an expert in how to get hundreds of permits from four jurisdictions.
She has become the College’s master Swiss army knife for every occasion, to solve every problem, to seize every nonobvious opportunity.
Sharon has been a tremendous friend and co-pilot for all of our achievements in student thriving and the successful expansion and elevation of our campus.
Please join me in thanking and congratulating Sharon, as well as Heather once again, on their Presidential Awards for Merit.