Tilghman advises female leaders

The panel, sponsored by the Association of Black Women in Higher Education, took for its topic “Presidential Perspectives on Leadership.” In addition to Tilghman, the panel featured Julianne Malveaux, president of the historically black Bennett College for Women in North Carolina.

Prior to assuming the presidency at Bennett in 2007, Malveaux was a successful pundit and businesswoman. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Boston College and a Ph.D. in economics from MIT.

Malveaux said she encountered sexism in her position as president, a feeling Tilghman echoed.

Malveaux recounted stories of faculty and colleagues attempting to “pull a fast one” on her, attempting to dupe her into giving out more paid vacations, among other things, because she was a woman.

Referring to herself as a “free spirit,” Malveaux said she found it difficult to acclimate to a job for which she must take into account other people’s responses to her ideas.

“Compromise is not a part of my vocabulary,” Malveaux said, to an audience rolling in laughter.

Tilghman, on the other hand, said that she found it easy to disregard prevalent sexism after years in the “male-oriented” field of science.

Instead, she said, she focused more attention on improving herself as a president.

Tilghman advised female leaders of the future to “seek opportunities to expand [one’s] horizons and … embrace [the] opportunity to take leadership.”

Malveaux told the young women in the audience, “see yourself as a leader,” adding that “men do it so well ... [they] promote themselves relentlessly.” She also emphasized the importance of bragging, as “people don’t know what you’re capable of unless you tell them.”

Malveaux also acknowledged her faults, citing an incident when the hiring of a chief-of-staff proved a wrong decision. “In hiring, it’s almost certain you will make mistakes,” Tilghman added.

Tilghman also shared a mistake of her own, explaining that she regrets the way she involved herself with the moratorium on athletics, a 2002 mandate by the eight Ivy League presidents that required varsity teams to refrain from holding practice or team activities for at least seven weeks each academic year.

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“Underperformance by student athletes is a concern at all of the Ivy schools,” Tilghman wrote in a letter to the editor published in The Daily Princetonian in 2002.

The proposal was met with opposition at Princeton, where student athletes said they felt that they were being unfairly targeted.

Tilghman acknowledged on Friday that she “took more on [her] shoulders than [she] should have,” adding that “the sooner you can acknowledge [a mistake] and move on, the better it is for your institution.”

Money also took center stage, as an audience member asked what each president would do with $750 million.

Tilghman said she would do “a great deal more to encourage more women to become members of the academy.” She added that she would try to improve civic engagement and education in the community but acknowledged that there would still not be “enough money to do what ... need[s] to be done in the communities.”

Malveaux had simpler plans. She openly declared that “everything we [at Bennett] do revolves around dollars,” explaining that Bennett College is currently having financial difficulties. She added that she regretted her college has not been able to meet the financial needs of all its students.

In the midst of their busy days, Malveaux and Tilghman both said they make time for themselves. Malveaux said she “tend[s] to be … calmer” after Pilates. Tilghman, meanwhile, ensures she makes time for family and for student groups on campus.

“[There are] 5,200 students here a year to entertain me,” Tilghman said.