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From her formative upbringing as the daughter of a college president to her innovative policy work at Harvard, Clayton Spencer\u2019s rise as a U.S. higher education leader culminates in her wow debut as president-elect of Bates \u2014 and her avowed commitment to leading Bates toward a stronger marriage of excellence and opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Made for the job<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Ava Clayton Spencer was born in December 1954 to Samuel and Ava Spencer in Concord, N.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI grew up as the daughter of a college president. I used to sneak across campus to watch commencements as a kid,\u201d she recalls. \u201cDinner conversation was about the issues facing the college.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Previously president of Mary Baldwin College, Sam Spencer began his 15-year tenure as president of Davidson College in 1968. By then, those dinnertime topics included the Vietnam War, civil rights, coeducation (Davidson was still all male) and fraternities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That wasn\u2019t all: in the city of Charlotte and surrounding Mecklenburg County, the landmark busing case Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education<\/em> was heading to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBecause we were in a small town in North Carolina, guests of the college would stay with us or have a meal. I was a teenager by then, and I\u2019d gone from listening to the adults from a window seat in the living room, to wanting a seat at the table and attending the various talks and lectures at the college. I soaked up everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cWhat I learned from my father,\u201d Clayton Spencer says, \u201cand what I\u2019ve learned and relearned throughout life, is that whatever you\u2019re doing, you have to be authentically you.\u201d Samuel Reid Spencer Jr. served as president of Davidson College, his alma mater, from 1968 to 1983.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spencer studied history and German at Williams College, making her the second Bates president to have a bachelor\u2019s from there, after T. Hedley Reynolds, Williams \u201942. She then read theology at Oxford University and earned a master\u2019s in the study of religion at Harvard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She is the first to have a law degree, from Yale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of her decision to not seek a doctorate in religion, she says that she \u201cwanted a life that combined ideas and action, and therefore landed at Yale for law school. I was able to do the kind of conceptual thinking I love, while staying engaged in the facts on the ground. That dialectic, between ideas and facts on the ground, has informed my life ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe field of religion fundamentally deals intellectually and morally with contradictions. How do you stay optimistic when you know that you\u2019re going to die, when you know that bad things are going to happen to good people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cReligion takes on these contradictions, placing you between the poles of the contradiction and making you think dynamically about finding a way forward. Dialectical thinking is how I move through practical problems. It\u2019s the furniture of my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking of \u201cpoles of contradiction,\u201d Spencer tells a story about working on Capitol Hill for the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, as chief education counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, which Kennedy chaired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI first met the senator when we were trying to pass direct lending for student loans, moving from a guarantee-agency system to funding directly from the federal government to colleges. I wrote a memo about how we were going to move 100 percent to direct lending in one fell swoop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was called in to meet with the senator. He sat in his well-worn leather armchair. And he said, \u2018Clayton, I\u2019ve read your memo. It\u2019s a really smart memo. Why don\u2019t you take a walk with me down the hall?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe took me to the office of Jim Jeffords, then a Republican senator from Vermont before he went independent. Jeffords was the swing vote on the committee. He said, \u2018Jim, my new education staffer here thinks this direct-lending thing is going to go through, no problem, at the markup next week. Can you tell her how many votes you have on the Republican side?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJeffords said, \u2018Well, Ted, I\u2019ve got one or two on my side, but you ought to be more worried about your side. You don\u2019t have a majority of the Democrats yet.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe senator walked me back, and he said, \u2018We\u2019ll give it several weeks, we\u2019ll work it and then we\u2019ll get this done.\u2019 That was how I was introduced to getting things done on Capitol Hill: It takes more than smart memos to win the day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Senate is a culture of persuasion, as is a college campus,\u201d Spencer says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSen. Kennedy cared passionately about ideals, but he knew that ideals were sterile unless you could somehow put them into action. He was one of the most productive legislators in U.S. history because he knew when to hold \u2019em and when to fold \u2019em.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given Kennedy\u2019s stature and power, Spencer, in effect, was chief education counsel for not just the committee but \u201cthe entire Senate and the country,\u201d says Nick Littlefield, former Kennedy chief of staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cClayton was a leader. She could master the substance of any issue; she could build the bipartisan alliances to get the initiative passed; and she could communicate the objective and details of the initiative in a charismatically persuasive way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe was one of the most respected staff directors I\u2019ve ever known.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spencer joined Harvard in February 1997 as a consultant for federal policy issues. The following year, she was appointed associate vice president for higher education policy reporting to the President, and in 2005 she rose to the new position of vice president for policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Working directly with four different Harvard presidents, Spencer became known for her collaborative approach, effectiveness in getting things done and passionate commitment to access and affordability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of her involvement in various university-wide initiatives, from a task force on the advancement and support of women in academic life to the role of the arts and international strategy, Spencer is especially proud of her part in three projects at Harvard:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 The merger of Harvard and Radcliffe College and the subsequent transformation of Radcliffe into an institute for advanced study;<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 The redesign and dramatic expansion of Harvard\u2019s financial aid program;<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 The creation of the Crimson Summer Academy for academically talented high school students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI learned a great deal by observing a variety of leadership styles,\u201d she says. \u201cThe most basic lesson is this: Effective leadership is based on persuasion, not on hierarchy or on one\u2019s position on an organizational chart. Leadership is most effective when you bring cooperative work to bear on solving hard problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI believe this is one of the most fun things to do in life. You take on a hard problem, get the best thinkers around the table, invite the great ideas and then move toward actual, concrete outcomes. In my experience, achieving a unity of ideas and action will motivate the entire community and propel an institution forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her highly effective yet low-key style caught the attention of The Harvard Crimson, which in 2008 published a profile headlined \u201cRight-Hand Woman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c…[C]olleagues say she studiously avoids imperiousness,\u201d wrote Clifford Marks, now a reporter for the National Journal<\/em>. \u201cFellow trustees of Williams College, on whose board she has served for five years, say that Spencer is an exceedingly modest \u2018coalition-builder,\u2019 experienced in organizing support in the ego-dominated halls of both Washington and Cambridge. \u2018It\u2019s not Clayton\u2019s style to hold herself out as \u201cI know more than you do,\u201d\u2019 said Williams trustee Michael Keating. \u2018She\u2019s very careful to say, \u201cBased on what I know, I have this point of view.\u201d\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spencer says she was \u201cvery privileged\u201d to work at Harvard with the late Rev. Peter Gomes \u201965 in his role as the Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeter had such rich and contradictory gifts, and you saw them all in a dynamic blend that was enormously powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was introduced to Bates in part through Peter\u2019s love for the college. Peter wrote in one of his later books, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, that Jesus \u2018wants us to live in the full implications of our human gifts.\u2019 That\u2019s a pretty interesting way to encapsulate the essence of the liberal arts, and the Bates experience as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cClearly that\u2019s a lesson he took very seriously and deeply.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn the course catalog, you describe yourselves as a community of people who love \u2018ideas, artistic expression, good talk and great books.\u2019 Who wouldn\u2019t want to be at that party?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen I read the presidential prospectus, I was blown away by Bates. It was love at first sight. Any college that leads its mission statement with an affirmation of the \u2018emancipating potential of the liberal arts\u2019 is a place I want to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThen there\u2019s the fact that from your earliest beginnings, Bates welcomed women and African Americans into the full standing of the scholarly community, at a time when that simply wasn\u2019t done. I love a place that does what is right, rather than what is expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnother quality that comes through loud and clear is the lack of pretension, that sense of being down to earth, having an authentic way of moving through the world. And that suits me to a T.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adding to the allure is the college\u2019s place in the state of Maine and the city of Lewiston. \u201cI find this state fascinating and I respect its reserve \u2014 the fact that it\u2019s hard to crack.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMovies \u2014 all kinds. Solving hard problems with smart people. Basketball. Arugula salads. Being a mom [daughter Ava Carter is a Harvard junior; son Will Carter is working on Wall Street with a degree from NYU]. Good friends. Catching up with James Reese, a 10th-grade classmate!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne of the legacies of the 2008 financial crisis is that we can no longer, in our society, equate wealth with excellence in higher education. But Bates knew that long ago: Bates was founded on the idea that it\u2019s less about what we have and much more about what we do. That is tremendously appealing to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe important thing for us now is to make sure that Bates is delivering on the liberal arts model as much as we say we are, and to make sure that the value added in this experience is worth the price.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI am simple-minded. My view is that in athletics, as in everything else, it\u2019s not worth doing unless you do it with the same commitment to rigor and excellence that you apply in other fields.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know Bates is famous for being humble, but I hope now that the college can step up and claim its excellence and rigor. Bates is doing important work in shaping a direction for the liberal arts in this new century. You see it in the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, in the general education curriculum, and in the ongoing commitment both to individual and collaborative work for theses and capstone projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo my mind, Bates is poised to be a leader in transforming the liberal arts for today\u2019s world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Fatherly](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/03\/E2-sam-DC007_10.jpg\")
<\/a>Fatherly advice<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The road to the presidency<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Power from dialectical poles<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A lesson from Ted Kennedy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The ideal persuader<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Getting things done<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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(Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nTurning crimson<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Gomes connection<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Coming to the party<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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(Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nWhat\u2019s fun?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Not what we have, but what we do<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Win, at some cost<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Take cake, forget humble pie<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
(Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nKnowledge and wisdom<\/h3>\n\n\n\n