New president of Sarah Lawrence College inaugurated

Cristle Collins Judd, who was inaugurated as the 11th president of Sarah Lawrence College on Friday afternoon, is a trailblazer.

Judd, who grew up in Texas, was the first woman in her family to go to college; the first woman to be tenured in the music department at the University of Pennsylvania; and the first woman to be appointed dean at Bowdoin College. She most recently served as a senior program officer at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which helps institutions of higher education to strengthen the arts.

A former colleague composed music to mark Judd’s installation at Sarah Lawrence, aptly titled: Changing the Odds.

For Judd — who earned her doctorate degree in music theory from King's College, University of London — the distinctions serve as a reminder.

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“It’s a reminder of doors which are and aren’t open and how we think about that,” Judd told me. “It’s about how we create truly inclusive communities, how we create conversations that recognize the importance of providing opportunity regardless of gender, race, or social economic circumstances.”

Judd replaces Karen Lawrence, who stepped down last November after leading the college of more than 1,600 undergraduate students for the last 10 years.

Judd, who is married to Bob Judd, a noted musicologist and executive director of the American Musicological Society, said their first daughter (she’s a mother of three) arrived during her dissertation, and the second, when she was on the tenure track.

“Real life doesn’t always align well with the career track,” she said.

At Bowdoin, she led efforts to develop a whole series of parental leave policies aimed at creating a better work-life balance.

Part of Judd’s focus in her new role as president at the liberal arts college will be to make sure that graduates are lifelong learners who know how to acquire new skills.

“The big thinking and the ability to do that has to be tied to the ability to communicate in a variety of ways, whether it is visual media or written media, to be analytical, to develop skills in coding, to develop skills with big data,” said Judd. “Those are all things we work hard to integrate into our curriculum and to provide opportunity for our students to use them in the context of the broader work they are doing.”

On Friday, as she addressed an audience made up of faculty members, former colleagues, presidents of colleges near and far (including from her alma mater Rice University), elected officials, students and her family, Judd articulated her vision for Sarah Lawrence: “Stand for significance.”

“We are poised to create a more integrated model of education as we explore not just the individual strengths of our various programs, but also the unique intersections they offer to provide liberal arts and advanced and professional training,” she said.

In the wake of so many events and issues in recent months that have generated not only front page news but sparked explosive debates, one initiative Judd told the audience she was looking forward to was a year-long series of events looking at “democracy and education.”

“What are the essential elements of a democracy? Who gets to be a citizen and why? How do we learn to speak to one another across deep ideological divides? How can we best balance the ideal of free speech in the face of hate speech? And what role should education play,” said Judd. “Together through wisdom with understanding (Sarah Lawrence motto), we will embrace the challenges facing democracy and education so that we will change the odds.”

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is an engagement editor and member of the editorial board for The Journal News/lohud.com. She also serves as an ombudswoman for the paper, a role in which she weighs in on stories and seeks to peel back the curtain on editorial decisions.

Twitter: @SwapnaVenugopal