The new chancellor greets her staff with an enthusiastic handshake, an open ear and a list of ambitious plans as vast as the campus quadrangle at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
But truth be told, Nancy Cantor initially didn’t want the job.
Until recently, Cantor was provost at the University of Michigan, one of the top public universities in the nation, and she wasn’t sure the U. of I. could compete with that.
But over talks spanning three months, the head of U. of I.’s chancellor search committee laid out a goal for Cantor that she couldn’t resist: Put the U. of I. on the national map.
“It’s a great jewel and it needs to be announced,” Cantor said. “For me, that’s an exciting challenge.”
On Monday, after one month on the job, Cantor will address her first freshman class on the Urbana campus. Through her speech, she’ll give freshmen a taste of the many bold goals she has for U. of I.
Among them is a potentially controversial plan to increase the number of out-of-state students and minorities in an effort to make the campus more diverse.
Cantor, a psychologist who has studied the value of learning in diverse settings, will make the melting pot theme a cornerstone of her leadership at U. of I.–not only by creating a more diverse student body but by more aggressively recruiting women and minorities to the faculty.
She also plans to focus on some of the disciplines that haven’t gotten the same attention as the top-ranked business, engineering, and technology programs at Illinois, a land grant institution with an original mission to carry out critical agricultural and technological research.
Cantor only became interested in the job when she realized the university’s leadership was already taking some critical steps to boost Illinois’ stature–at a cost of a substantial tuition increase and millions in new dollars from the state.
Clearly, Cantor’s appointment was about building Illinois’ reputation and visibility, says Tom Ulen, who, as head of the chancellor search committee, helped persuade Cantor to consider the job.
Cantor and other U. of I. leaders believe the university has established itself as a powerhouse in certain academic fields. But the university’s entire program is not as well regarded as its leaders would like, says Ulen, a professor of law.
“We know full well that Berkeley and Michigan are in a league of their own. With respect to public institutions, they’re the two greatest in the world,” Ulen said. “But the University of Illinois is really not that far behind them, and we now have the resources to make us one of the truly great institutions in the U.S. … When we laid out all the things going on here, she got really interested in the job.”
Many of U. of I.’s top leaders argue the timing is right for Cantor to substantially elevate the university’s reputation.
The university’s board of trustees recently approved a tuition increase that will generate about $15.5 million in new funds for academic programs over the next five years, said Provost Richard Herman. Some of the money will go toward hiring 150 new faculty members.
Funding increase
State funding has also skyrocketed for new projects at Illinois. In the past two years, it has increased by $27.7 million for programs, compared with a total increase of $15.2 million for the preceding five years. The state has also committed $169.5 million in the last two years for capital projects.
“It’s hard to imagine a better time to be here,” Herman said. “In a sense, we have the opportunity to shape this institution for generations.”
Still, Cantor is likely to face friction with some proposals. The push for even a small increase in out-of-state enrollment, particularly at a time when admission to the university has become increasingly competitive, already has critics.
“My first obligation is to the students from the state of Illinois,” said Gerald Shea, chairman of the board of trustees. “After all, it’s the taxpayers of my state that are paying for that university. I’ve got an obligation to them.”
Traditionally, leaders of the Urbana-Champaign campus have kept out-of-state enrollment low. Today, about 9 percent of undergraduate students come from outside Illinois. The number of out-of-state students is also kept at a minimum at the University of California at Berkeley, where 8.4 percent of the freshman class was from outside California last year. But the University of Michigan’s numbers were much higher: 33 percent of undergraduate students were from outside the state last year.
Cantor said she did not have a range or maximum goal in mind but she hoped to “slightly” increase out-of-state enrollment and hoped to accomplish that “not at the expense of in-state students” but by expanding certain academic programs.
The more diverse student population is important, she said, “so undergraduates who grow up in Illinois have the place to come to a great research university and the opportunity to mix with the experiences of people from outside the state.”
“The second reason it’s so critical is about the giveback to the state of Illinois,” she said. “If you think of our role in helping create a vibrant workforce for Illinois, we want to attract to this area talent from all over this country and indeed from all over this world.”
Cantor, who was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has fought for diversity for much of her career.
Legal challenges
At Michigan, she defended the university’s affirmative-action admissions policies that were challenged by two lawsuits, using her scholarly research as a way to argue the educational benefits of a diverse student body.
“College is arguably the best time to explore the boundaries of one’s habits of mind, to stretch outside of that which is familiar, to change one’s self by observing others,” she wrote for the Michigan Alumnus magazine. “But students, like the rest of us, are not likely to explore terrain outside the familiar if, when they look around, they see only their own reflections.”
In the last year, two federal judges issued different opinions on the two lawsuits, ruling in support of the undergraduate school’s standards and against the law school’s. Legal scholars expect the issue to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Cantor’s colleagues at Michigan said she was an inclusive, vibrant leader who won’t shy away from tough issues.
“I think a huge life project for Nancy is about bringing all kinds of people under the tent, not only in the educational world but in almost every piece of her life,” said Richard Price, a professor of psychology at Michigan who has known Cantor since she was a graduate student.
Cantor, 49, grew up in New York City and earned a bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College and a doctorate from Stanford University. Before becoming provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Michigan, she was dean of Michigan’s graduate school and previously was chair of the department of psychology at Princeton.
Eclectic interests
She has a mix of interests she hopes to bring to bear in her leadership at Illinois. A ballet dancer as a child, Cantor adores the performing arts and hopes to re-emphasize liberal arts study at Illinois. She’s interested in getting seemingly unconnected disciplines on campus–such as engineering and the performing arts–to collaborate in new ways.
Cantor is also a big sports fan, so much so that she suggested watching a “Monday Night Football” game as a first date with her eventual husband. Her competitive spirit won him over, and it sure didn’t hurt when it came to the sports fans on Illinois’ board of trustees.
“We discovered in talking with her that she’s very enthusiastic about putting Illinois on the map,” said Trustee Susan Gravenhorst. “She recognizes we’re often playing second fiddle to Michigan.”
