In contemporary society, the percentage of American adults who are single is inching ever closer to the 50% mark. Yet in our nation's colleges and universities, 89% of the presidents are married. We're not talking conservative churches here, nor any other bastions of traditional mores. Colleges are supposed to be the intellectual vanguard of society. They are often impugned by the right as havens for lefties. Yet they are ruled by married people - especially married men.
I have such a backlog of great topics to post about here - there's the website devoted to mocking couples who can't stop updating their Facebook status with cutsie tributes to their honey; the New York Times op-ed columnist whose proposed fix for inequality includes discriminating against the single, the childless, and the divorced; the just-published essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education with the provocative title, "What if marriage is bad for us," and more. I'm eager to get to all of them. But I just read the article about college presidents (thanks to Cathy Day for the tip) and it is on my mind, so I'll discuss that here.
The article is actually about one particular college president, Brian W. Casey, the first person at DePauw University to hold that title who was not a married man. (Read it here first if you want to see what grabs you before I tell you what struck me.)
I think it is a wonderful article, laudable in its recounting of Casey's many accomplishments and his contributions to the university. I also like the kind of person Casey seems to be, with his love of books (they adorn his dining room), of lively discussions with students and staff as well as faculty, and of transparency in several senses of the word.
The President's house, where Casey now lives, used to hide its married couple residents behind stuffy drapes. No longer. "I wanted people to see in," Casey said. He invites them in, too, for dinners, discussions, and debates. (Are you worried about what that single man might be up to? Perhaps the openness reassures those harboring thoughts of singlism that he has nothing to hide.)
The article acknowledges that there was a concern when Casey was under consideration for the appointment: "The one question, for Dr. Casey and, fleetingly, for a few trustees, was about a single guy serving as the host at The Elms." ("The Elms" is the President's house. Don't blame Casey - it wasn't his decision to give his house a name.) Casey quieted that anxiety, too: He invites a dozen or so DePauw students to co-host each of his events.
Offhand, I can think of one single woman who is currently a university president. Donna Shalala has been president of the University of Miami since 2001. Like Brian Casey, she has a long list of impressive accomplishments. I wonder whether single people need to have even more impressive records than married people in order to be taken seriously for such high-level posts in academia. Really, though, I'm mentioning her in part to have an excuse to tell you about my favorite New Yorker cartoon of all time. It was published just after President Clinton had appointed Shalala to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services in 1993. The cartoon showed a little girl and a little boy playing. The girl looks at the boy and says, "You be the doctor, and I'll be the Secretary of Health and Human Services." I've heard that Shalala has it framed and hanging in her home.
The bigger issues here are not cartoonish. The positions of greatest power in our institutions of higher learning are overwhelmingly dominated by people who are married. What does this mean for singles and for their place in society? What are the implications for the policies and perspectives that are taken most seriously, or considered at all? Diversity isn't just about race or gender.
