Cantor says 'U' has a diverse role today

By Katie Plona
Daily Staff Reporter

In the Rackham Graduate School building where she previously served as dean, Provost Nancy Cantor joked to an audience of nearly 100 people that her job as the University's second-in-command and top woman administrator is not fun.

Confronting and impacting some of the most complex and intense issues that face modern society - especially at a major institution such as the University - isn't supposed to be fun, she said.

But that difficulty doesn't mean the job isn't inviting and worthwhile.

Rackham Dean Earl Lewis invited Cantor to deliver the second of a four-part Rackham lecture series focusing on American values.

"I can't think of a topic more important for this University and all major research universities than to think about American values," Cantor said.

After serving as the University's chief academic officer for slightly more than one year, Cantor said her job requires her to play a diverse role in society and have responsibilities to different communities of people.

Cantor asked the audience of mostly faculty members and administrators to envision three key "value frames" through which the evolving role of the University as a major institution can be understood and directed.

The three contexts Cantor named were thinking about the University as a great research university, the difference between centralized and decentralized communities on campus and the scholarship of social and personality psychology.

As a major research university, Cantor said, the University demonstrates both its public and private interests and responsibilities.

Major research universities "are really grand, societal experiments," Cantor said.

She added that the University combines several domains, including public, research and higher education, placing it in a unique position to impact society.

"We don't want to be owned," Cantor said. "Yet, we know that we have a sense of responsibility outward."

The University also has a desire to link the many communities on campus and in Ann Arbor to each other, while still allowing each to maintain a sense of autonomy, Cantor said.

"How do we do that dance between the whole and its parts?" she asked.

As part of this role, Cantor and her colleagues encourage the crossing of boundaries between different communities in order to create new relationships and stimulate ideas.

"We are afforded the luxury to try to figure out new forms of human relations," she said, adding that this luxury is not always easy to handle.

Sometimes it creates tension and a range of emotions, from love to hate. But it allows the University the power to open incredible opportunities for progress and influence within society, she said.

"There are a lot of bump ups and tension that I hope (spawn) vitality," Cantor said.

Trying to figure out how to distribute the University's resources, such as how to allocate budget dollars, is one way the provost's office affects the interaction of different communities.

Cantor also introduced an aspect of her academic expertise in social psychology as a context in which to envision the University's role and responsibilities.

By encouraging through structure, the University can add to the richness of people lives.

According to one particular psychological approach, she said, individuals inherently approach a situation or problem with certain social constructs.

If the University can foster an environment in which people with different social constructs are interacting, social boundaries can be stretched, she said, adding that this pushing usually is difficult.

"If it were fun and easy and with no tension, it would get done in all the communities we came from and go back to," Cantor said.

SNRE junior Shannon Beattie, who was one of a minority of undergraduate students at the event, said she was not surprised when she didn't see an overwhelming number of students because most people don't know what the provost does.

If they did, Beattie said, more students would be interested in what she had to say.

"Other than the fact that I feel her to be an important part of the University, I just wanted to hear what she had to say" about the future of the University, she said.

Ann Arbor resident Bob Ball said he often attends events hosted by the University because he likes to keep in touch with what's going on with his alma mater and his community.

Part of the reason he enjoyed listening to Cantor's speech, he said, is because she detailed the variety of tasks she performs as provost. In the past, Ball said, that wasn't always the case.

"You got the sense that a lot was going on in the background," but the people who were actually doing the jobs didn't speak about their initiatives.

"It's not going through the figurehead anymore," Ball said.

Athletic Director Tom Goss will be the next guest speaker in the American Values lecture series. He will give his speech, titled "Steering Cultural Change: Keeping Michigan Athletics the Leaders and the Best," on Oct. 8 at 4 p.m. in Rackham Amphitheater.

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