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To the Editor of Change magazine
I belatedly discovered an article about Wagner College (New York) that had been published in your November/December 2009 issue. The article is co-authored by Wagner President Richard Guarasci and Provost Devorah Lieberman and recounts President Guarasci's arrival at Wagner in 1997, when I hired him to be provost with the intention of having a succession plan in place. At that time, I was beginning my tenth year as president.
President Guarasci characterizes Wagner when he arrived as suffering from chronic enrollment declines, along with other problems that added up to an institution in “serious trouble.” He and Dr. Leiberman go on to report that their leadership subsequently remedied those problems, thereby making the college the success it has become.
“Serious trouble” is, admittedly, a subjective description. However, my recollection of Wagner's condition on the occasion of Dr. Guarasci's arrival makes his assessment unrecognizable.
It is true that Wagner College was nearly bankrupt when I arrived a decade before Guarasci in 1988. In the ensuing years before Dr. Guarasci's arrival, enrollment had doubled to a level of excess capacity. Net enrollment revenues had tripled. US News had elevated Wagner from bottom tier to top tier, an unprecedented upgrade in so short a time. The campus had been restored. The geographic diversity had changed the student body from local New York City residents to 70 percent out-of-state residents. Both Middle States and the NYS Department of Education were applauding the remarkable turnaround. Newspaper headlines chronicling the success of the college included “Bravo for Wagner College” and “Wagner College's Quiet Renaissance.”
I recall Dr. Guarasci's enthusiasm when he arrived as provost. Never did he express to me his view that the college was “in serious trouble.” To the contrary, he complimented me for having “saved” Wagner. While still an unendowed, enrollmentrevenue-dependent institution at that time, all vital signs were pointing to a very optimistic future which virtually everyone associated with the college truly believed was ahead. Yes, there was work outstanding, but we were hardly in crisis mode.
I cannot explain why Drs. Guarasci and Lieberman have chosen to portray the Wagner College of 1997 as being in such dire straits. Contrary to their overview, Wagner was an energized institution with every promise for continued success when Drs. Guarasci and Lieberman arrived. Their description of the declines they inherited makes no sense to me, nor, I am sure, to anyone else who was associated with Wagner at that time.
Feel free to contact me for media accounts and other documentation that verify my version of what happened when.
-Norman Smith
President Emeritus, Wagner College
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