Larry speaks with R. Barbara Gitenstein author of EXPERIENCE IS THE ANGELED ROAD: MEMOIR OF AN A OF ACADEMIC

R. Barbara Gitenstein was the first Jewish president of The College of New Jersey.  She holds a bachelor's degree in English from Duke University and a Ph.D. in English and American literature from U. N. C. in 1975.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is a podcast from WR Nowmore of the WR Saturday Morning Show and
Larry Minte Welcome Back. Anti Israelprotest with a palpable strain of anti Semitism
plagued college campuses in New York,New Jersey and across the country. University
presidents came under scrutiny because of theirmishandling of the protests. Some were forced

(00:23):
to resign. Our Barbara Gittenstein,who was the first Jewish president of the
College of New Jersey. She wasthere for over a decade, resigning in
twenty eighteen. She is the authorof a new book called Experience is the
Angled Road. It's about principled leadershipand boy, could we use that now,

(00:43):
Barbara. I know you go byBobby. May I call you Bobby?
Is that okay? Please do okay? Bobby? Thanks so much for
joining us. Will I'm going toget to your book in a moment.
But you may be the perfect personto talk about the protests at university and
the way college presidents are handling itacross the country. Give us your thoughts

(01:04):
on the protests and exactly how theywere handled. Well. I don't know
that I'm the perfect person, butI certainly have had plenty of experience.
I was at a college for almostnineteen years, and it seems to me
that while times are different now thanin twenty eighteen when I retired, they're

(01:27):
not that different. And I amtroubled that there's not equally as much attention
to protecting students' right to speak asthere is. Two concerns about possible disruptions.

(01:49):
Explain that, Please explain your ruption. So disruption is it depends on
what kind of disruption you're talking about. If you're talking about threatening life or
violence or destruction, that's one thing. But if you're talking about just disrupting
the normal order of things, thatprobably is the way that all social protests

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has worked in our country for manyyears. But aren't you let me just
stop on that point if you could. But aren't you just disrupting life for
other students them getting to classrooms andcommencements. Well, well, yes,
in some ways you are. Butisn't that what civil disobedience is about?
And the question is how that ishandled. One of the things that I've

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become, you know, intrigued by, is that the concern about outsiders which
is being raised. This is notour students, these are outsiders is sort
of a It brings back memories ofmy youth as as a student, when

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when there was always this threat ofan outsider, outside force, when in
fact, perhaps it is your ownstudents who are raising concerns in a legitimate
kind of way to say, thisis not in my name. This is
a concern that I don't think isreceiving enough attention. I do believe,

(03:21):
however, that you have to lookat the range of activities, and if
you compare the range of activities atmost institutions, not all institutions, but
at most institutions, the activities havebeen largely peaceful and have largely been a

(03:43):
forum for students to express their opinionson something that matters very deeply to them.
Is there an Is there an undercurrentof anti Semitism in these protests?
In some of them, there isin some of than there is not in
all of them. Did you feelthat at all when you were at the

(04:03):
College of New Jersey Did you seethis coming? Oh? Yes, yes,
not this particular issue. But whenI was at the College of New
Jersey, we had any number ofepisodes where speakers came on campus, The
College of New Jersey is a publicinstitution. We are supposed to be a
forum for open speech. And therewere speakers on our campus, some of

(04:31):
them invited, most of them notinvited, with whom I had tremendous personal
disagreement. But to throw them offcampus was simply not what you could do
at a public institution. And thequestion was how did you handle that conversation
and how did you help students learnto respond and not to silence them.

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One more question about this, andI do want to point out one thing.
You was talking about the outside influence, and you think that sometimes that
said just to diminish what the protestersare doing, what the students are doing.
I will say that in New York, forty percent of the arrest they
had were outside agitators, So therewas definitely outside agitators involved. Does that

(05:17):
change your thinking on it? All? Those are not the statistics that I
have seen, well that came fromthe mayor. Wells, those are not
the statistics that I have seen reportedin the newspaper. Okay, good enough,
Yes, that is what the mayor. That is what the mayor said.
We're talking to Barbara Gettenstein, formerpresident of the College of New Jersey
its first Jewish president, and whichis why we're asking certain questions. And

(05:41):
the author of the new book,Experience is the Angled Road. That's a
fascinating title. Explain it, sure, This book is actually a memoir about
how I became a leader and thechallenges that I that I experience, often
being the only whatever in the room, the only woman, the only Jew,

(06:04):
the only intellectual, the only insome cases southern or the you know,
and how do you learn to leadfrom the periphery. It stops before
I become the president of the Collegeof New Jersey. There's a new book
coming out in January which is onlyabout my nineteen years at TCNJ. In

(06:26):
both cases, I really give tributeto the incredible mentors that I had who
helped me learn how to be aleader and how to confront challenge and learn
to embrace lass as a means ofgrowing. Now, you said the book
is about leadership, not a handbookon how to be a leader. What

(06:50):
is the difference, Well, Experienceis The Angled Road doesn't have a list
of this is what you should do. Rather it it narrates experiences that I
had and the angles that I hadto confront as I learned to redirect my

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life. For instance, my firstlove was not higher education, was not
the academy I was. I wasa singer. I was a very serious
single. I wanted to sing atthe Metropolitan Opera. Well. I had
a very nice voice for a highschool student. It was not the credibe
that cuts you off the stage ofthe metropolity. So when I had to

(07:33):
confront that in college, I hadto learn to completely redirect myself. And
in fact, that was a veryimportant learning experience for me. How do
you redirect? How do you redirectan institution when you recognize that something is
going awry? Uh, and thatwould be in either case could be protests,

(07:57):
It could it could be an economicissue, and how do you figure
out a new path. That's interesting. We're running out of time right now.
Let me wrap all this together andbring in your book. With the
protests, college presidents may have todeal with these protests again in a few
months, another round of them.Some of them didn't survive the first round.

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There were a few presidents that hadto resign. Maybe it'll be about
this, maybe it'll be a protestabout something else, or a crisis.
They have to deal with like youhad to deal with nine to eleven.
What is the one piece of adviceyou would give them? Learn to know
your students, establish ways of communicationso that you will understand what the issues

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are. Make sure that you understandyour community. The other piece of advice
that I would give, I knowyou asked for one. That's okay,
as many as you want. Butthe other really important piece of advice is
wait until you absolutely positively have tocall in external police forces. Before you

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do so, it will absolutely transformeverything that is happening. Most institutions these
days have very well prepared and informedcampus police officers who approach the whole issue
of managing a moment of crisis ina different way than municipal authorities they're supposed

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to, and they really embrace thenotion of community policing. And once you
bring in somebody in riot gear,everything changes. Bobby, thanks so much
for talking to us today. Ireally enjoyed it. Thank you so much.
You're more than welcome. It's apleasure to meet you. Larry our
Barbara Gettenstein, the former president ofthe College of New Jersey, its first

(09:56):
Jewish president, and the author ofthe new book Experience is the Angled Road.
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