From Rachel Toor
[Sometimes, as the co-founder, creator, and only employee of The Sandbox, I arrogate to myself the privilege of an occasional issue without a president’s anonymous contribution.]
For the last three years, I’ve undertaken an unofficial postdoc in higher ed leadership and benefited from a lot of extraordinary mentoring. There is still so much I don’t understand about what I’ve learned to call this sector, and every day I am brought up short by my own ignorance and the grace of people who can help me see the bigger picture. I struggle to render my impressions in ways that might resonate.
At IHE, I am a freelancer, charged only with producing a weekly newsletter about leadership and writing columns. As such, Sara Custer is kind of my boss (Doug Lederman warned her I was unmanageable, and he’s never wrong), always a thought partner, and most of all, a woman I am fortunate to call friend. She has a big honkin’ brain with an Oklahoman’s unpretentious warmth.
Like many of the presidents I know, Sara came into a leadership role as editor in chief following a founder who had covered higher ed for almost longer than she has been alive. Doug may not be a physical giant, but he left some big shoes behind.
Last week, after getting to see in person many president friends in D.C., Sara and I took the Metro to her home. We went for a run around the grounds of Howard University, where I made us stop to take in the scene and imagine what it must be like for an 18-year-old student to arrive at that place, that Mecca.
When we got back to the apartment, redolent with the mapo tofu her lovely husband, Kash, had cooked for dinner, Sara didn’t offer me water. Instead, she gave me a plastic cup filled with—wait for it—flat, not-cold diet A&W root beer.
I practically cried into my hydration of choice, going on and on about how loved and seen that small gesture made me feel. Sara’s spent enough time with me to notice my, er, quirky tastes. I asked Kash about what I think exemplifies something in her character. He said, “Sara is very perceptive.”
No. I am perceptive; Sara has something else: thoughtfulness. She pays close attention to other people and sees them fully and without judgment, an essential quality in a journalist, editor, and manager. [Note to SC: you don’t get to edit me even though I know this makes you twitchy.]
That night, Alex Honnold was scheduled to free climb Taipei 101, which would be live-streamed on Netflix. Sara and Kash had somehow missed Free Solo, so I explained, and we were set to watch. Weather intervened, as it sometimes does, the skyscraper scaling was delayed a day, and we continued our sparkling after-dinner convo while Neville, her off-the-track greyhound, occasionally deigned to lean on me.
Sara asked if I knew anyone at Harvard’s Kennedy School or how she could get Jacinda Ardern’s email to invite her on the Key podcast. (Everyone overestimates my reach.) Wait, what?
As it turns out, Sara had just watched the new documentary about Ardern. I hadn’t followed the New Zealand prime minister since her eloquent resignation speech, which I wrote about in an early Sandbox in October 2023. My (nominal) boss said I had to see the film. So, like a good little nonemployee, I obeyed. The next day, after two long flights from one Washington to my home in another, I spent four hours in front of the TV.
First up: the live event of Alex Honnold climbing one of the tallest buildings in the world without ropes. Sure, I think this is cuckoo bananas. And I know there are things I do (running a 100-mile race in the Himalayas or authoring a book that is an homage to rats) that other people just don’t get. For those who are not driven by passion and can’t seem to find pursuits that, even if hard or unpopular, bring them joy, I feel only pity.
I could not budge from the screen watching the live broadcast (Toby brought me dinner; Sara and I both married well). It was so riveting that I stopped checking my phone every two minutes for updates from the Twin Cities. What Alex Honnold did might be insane. Or it might be an incredible act of courage. It’s likely both. This father of two is not a reckless climber. He is strategic, deliberate, studies the context, and trains for specific challenges. He has confidence but not arrogance. Like running marathons or other acts of endurance, it’s all in the preparation and having the mental and emotional strength to do hard things. You have to believe you can do it; you have to have optimism.
Watching Honnold Spider-Man up 1,667 feet of glass and concrete, I kept thinking about a different kind of climb—about the administrators I know who are working to run colleges and universities where the weather could change in an instant and the headwinds are strong. The stakes feel just as high, and for some, the fall can be just as public and nearly as devastating.
After Toby and I let our heart rates return to normal when [spoiler alert] Honnold reached the top, I said, “Now we watch Prime Minister.” Toby, always game, said, “Great!”
Jacinda Ardern fell into the top role when a man she supported resigned. When asked if she thought she could “credibly lead a government,” the 37-year-old responded, “Would you like to tell me why you don’t think I can?” She took on the challenge and faced down those who questioned her with an awe-inspiring confidence. And then, at home with her partner, and having just gotten accidentally pregnant, found the words to describe her feelings to herself: imposter syndrome. She had the prime minister role thrust upon her, and she prepared to rise to the challenge, understanding she could only show up as herself.
Which means that, as a woman, she had to put up with, as one person said in the doc, the “slings and arrows of outrageous commenters.” Who attacked her most viciously? Sadly, it was other women. Her guiding principle: to lead with kindness and compassion. When questioned about doing things that seemed risky, she responded with confusion. “Tell people what you know,” she said, as if doing the right and moral thing was completely obvious. Even more confusing to her was when people thanked her for a humane response. “It should be a basic expectation,” she said, and didn’t add the “duh.”
Ardern got assault weapons banned and restored a woman’s right to dignity. She dealt with horrific loss of life—mass shootings at two mosques, the eruption of a volcano—and hugged and cried with her people. She nerded out, did the homework, and was acknowledged as the world’s most eloquent leader, when what she did was speak honestly and authentically, unafraid to smack down the idiots.
Closing the country during the first round of COVID kept people from dying. And then the people turned. Kiwi antivaxxers learned from us in the U.S. A noisy minority protested and attacked the capitol. Ardern had to take sleeping pills. Her family paid a price. She burned out and decided, when she didn’t have enough left in the tank to continue, to make an exit.
I’ve seen that exhaustion up close in the presidents I talk to. They make agonizing decisions that constituents react to as if they’re being cavalier. They experience the weariness of carrying their communities through storms they didn’t create, trying to keep faith that decency still matters.
Through it all, Ardern’s leadership model was Ernest Shackleton, who, as we know, failed at his goal of crossing the Antarctic on land. Where he succeeded was in bringing home every crew member alive. Ardern said she believes optimism is true moral courage, a state of mind that helps to motivate. Some may find it naïve, she said, but it’s not. It’s hope.
Listening to her, I thought about the presidents I know who keep showing up every day. To be honest, this is why it’s more fun to talk with these realistic and yet optimistic people who are trying to build and sustain people and institutions than it is to hang out with cynical faculty and journalists who think they prove how smart they are by critiquing.
I know why this inspiring documentary spoke to Sara. Even if she would never say it, I saw their similarities as leaders and as women. A president friend reminded me that the motto of the National Association of Colored Women is “lifting as we climb.” If there were ever a Sandbox movie about college and university presidents, this is what it would look like: courageous folks doing the right thing in public and then going home to their families, losing sleep, and sometimes crying their eyes out.
To those badasses, I can say only one thing: thank you.
