The Making of Bennington's 10th President, Mariko Silver

In the summer of 2001, at a cocktail party in Manhattan to benefit the National Endowment for the arts, a man was taking in a nearby conversation. It was the kind of small talk that might have been overheard at any number of parties in New York that evening—a young woman back in the city after three years abroad—but that’s not what caught this man’s attention.

The expat whom the conversation revolved around was Mariko Silver. Guests were discussing that she had just returned from Bangkok, where she had been working as a business strategist for a publisher of international travel magazines. She had a history degree from Yale, a master’s in science and technology policy from the University of Sussex, in England, and now, after a year in Southeast asia, was deciding between a nance job in New York, or business school. She seemed to be leaning toward the latter.

The man, mid-40s, brown hair but for a touch of grey around the ears, turned and politely inserted himself into the conversation.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Did I hear you say the woman you are talking about has a master’s in science and technology policy from Sussex?”

Indeed he had.

“Here,” he said, offering his card. “Have her give me a call.”

The card identified the man as Michael Crow, executive vice provost of Columbia University. Prior to that title—the University’s third highest administrative post— his card had read: “Professor of Science and Technology Policy, School of International and Public affairs.” With a master’s in the eld himself—from Syracuse, in 1985— he was well familiar with the Sussex program. Formally known as the Science and Technology Policy research Unit, or SPRU, insiders like Crow regard it as one of the very best in the world. Silver had declined her acceptance to Oxford to attend.

She did accept Crow’s invitation for a phone call, though—which quickly turned into an invitation for an interview. The interview turned into a job offer, on the spot, and before Silver knew it, she had a Columbia business card of her own. It read: “Technology Policy Specialist, Office of the Executive Vice Provost.” She was 23 years old.

On September 19, 2012, shortly after 1:00 PM, Bennington students, faculty, and staff received an e-mail from President Coleman announcing her retirement after 25 years.

At the time of Coleman’s announcement, the trustees had already embarked on finding her replacement. They had interviewed three executive search firms to help guide the process, ultimately deciding on the smallest, Phillips Oppenheim, a 10-person New York-based firm specializing in finding leaders for nonprofit organizations including colleges. While its smaller size afforded a level of attention 

the others couldn’t match, another appeal was that its co-founder and principal, Jane Phillips Donaldson, had been a Bennington Board member from 2006 to 2010, and had headed undergraduate admissions at Wesleyan and Yale before launching the firm in 1991.

“She came in knowing full well what Bennington is all about, which was exceedingly helpful,” said trustee Bobby Deane ’51, who has been involved in Bennington’s last five presidential searches. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that it’s not easy to explain this place to someone who hasn’t experienced it for themselves.”

By mid-October, the search was well into what Phillips Oppenheim calls “Phase One.” The Board had organized a presidential search committee of eight trustees—six of them alumni—and faculty members Susan Sgorbati ’72, MFA ’86 and Robert Ransick. The committee’s first order of business was to draft a position description defining what the College was seeking in a candidate. They engaged the entire Bennington community in the process, holding two days of on-campus discussions with faculty, staff, and students; hosting a series of nine focus groups with alumni and parents in five cities across the country; and creating a page on the College’s website for submitting comments and feedback related to the search.

“We wanted to hear on a genuine, grassroots level what all of our constituents had to say,” said Board chair Alan Kornberg ’74. “Fortunately, we found that there was a very strong consensus.”

That consensus was stated clearly in the position description itself, which was posted online and in several targeted publications shortly before Thanksgiving.

“Above all,” it pronounced, “Bennington’s new president will be expected to embody and champion the core values of this unique institution...and to nurture and extend their expression both on campus and to the rest of the world.”

Within three months, more than 160 candidates would apply.

Less than a year after Crow hired Silver at Columbia, he received a job offer of his own. In July 2002, he was appointed 16th President of Arizona State University (ASU), the largest public university in the country. at Columbia, Silver had been working with Crow on technology transfer initiatives (the translation of academic research into practical applications to be brought to market) and on the University’s research response to the events of 9/11. By the time Crow was tapped by ASU, he was so impressed that he offered her a job in Tempe.

“She had a very rare mixture of intellect, wisdom, global awareness, and a high degree of empathy that was well beyond her years,” he said. “She had a clear understanding of how the world works, but also, of how people work. and in our line of work, that’s incredibly important.”

Inspired by Crow’s vision for ASU, Silver accepted a position in his administration as “Director of Strategic Projects.” Over the next few years, as Crow oversaw the development of what he called a “New american University” focused on the pursuit of research and knowledge for the common good, he would come to rely on Silver for “solving what everyone else thought was impossible.”

Silver worked with the Arizona state legislature on a number of economic development projects that changed the way the University was funded and strengthened its role as an economic asset in the community. She helped secure state funding for a major public-private partnership in support of the sciences and led the creation of the Arizona Indicators Project, a central resource for data to inform policy making and to increase public awareness around state issues.

“A group of us would be in a meeting and decide that we wanted this or that to happen, but without any idea of how to get there,” said Crow. “That’s when we’d hand it off to Mariko.”

When ASU was exploring the possibility of an institutional relationship with China, Crow sent Silver there with a one-way ticket and no itinerary. Working closely with faculty, she would return with China’s sitting vice minister of education in tow. Silver spearheaded the resulting collaboration, the International Institute for University Design, which brought together university leaders and researchers from the U.S., China, Japan, Singapore, Australia, and Europe.

“How many people can take a completely nonexistent relationship with entities that have never even communicated, and convert it into an intellectually grounded, flexible, productive working relationship in relatively short order?” asked Crow. “Where Mariko developed the ability I have no idea, but she’s an absolute master.”

Crow did everything in his power to keep Silver near his working side, which mostly meant challenging her with interesting projects, but also, in 2006, allowing her to pursue her PhD in economic geography from UCLA.

For a year and a half, Silver would fly from Arizona to Los Angeles on Tuesday, take classes until Thursday, and return to her office in Tempe on Friday. She focused her dissertation on “Transnational Corporations, Institutional Change, and Economic Development,” examining case studies in China and Vietnam, where she concurrently had been working to expand ASU’s international portfolio.

In 2008, shortly after Silver married Thom Loubet, a professional musician, the two were out to dinner in London—where Loubet had a gig—when she received a phone call. It was from the office of Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. Her policy advisor for innovation, economic development, and higher education was stepping down; they wanted Silver to step in.

She joined Napolitano’s administration “on loan” from ASU, meaning she would return to the University at the end of the governor’s term. But when Napolitano was nominated by President Obama to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security in 2009, Silver was among the select group to join her.

As acting assistant Secretary for International affairs and Deputy assistant Secretary for International Policy at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Silver led an office of 40 staff members and supported a network of thousands of department personnel deployed overseas. Over three years, she developed the first department- wide international strategy; designed a global initiative to enhance aviation security; created the first U.S.-India Homeland Security dialogue; and led collaborations with foreign governments and international organizations to counter terrorism, secure borders, enforce immigration laws, safeguard cyberspace, and ensure resilience to disasters.

“Whether balancing the needs of diverse communities, or championing projects that serve both public and private needs,” Napolitano said, “Mariko Silver has the ability to develop and advance big ideas.”

How she does this is difficult for most leaders to describe. But Silver boils it down to creating complementary practices among disparate groups, even groups with competing agendas. Take, for instance, her work building bridges—sometimes literally—to align U.S points of entry with those being established by Canada and Mexico. While it may be self-evident that such efforts require coordination, actually creating a joint process to go about that work is another matter altogether. “I guess on a certain level this kind of work may not seem like the sexy work you’d imagine when you conjure the work of the Department of Homeland Security,” Silver explains. “But it is work that is fundamental to a functioning government.”

In February 2013, Silver was in her office working on an international development project involving a partnership with the World Bank when she received an unexpected e-mail. The subject line read: “Bennington College—Presidential Search,” sent from Jane Phillips Donaldson.

Phillips Oppenheim refers to the three-month out- reach period as Phase Two. This is when the applicant pool is established, vetted, and pared down for the interview phase, or Phase Three. Most candidates come unsolicited, others are nominated, and a few are sought out and recruited by Phillips Oppenheim through its expansive database, various professional networks, or original research.

Silver was among the latter, having been recommended to Donaldson by someone in her network. after Silver responded to Donaldson’s e-mail, the two spoke on the phone for nearly two hours. Donaldson then collected her CV and references and added her to a list of eight candidates who would move on to Phase Three.

In early March, Silver flew to New York to interview with the search committee at Alan Kornberg’s office. Kornberg was immediately struck by her “liveliness, fierce intellectual power, and dynamic personality,” he said. But what most impressed him was the way she spoke about Bennington.

How many people can take a completely nonexistent relationship with entities that have never even communicated, and convert it into an intellectually grounded, flexible, productive working relationship in relatively short order?” asked Crow. “Where Mariko developed the ability i have no idea, but she’s an absolute master. 

“It was scary how accurate her perception of the school was,” he said. “I don’t know how she was able to do that, but it was as if she’d been sitting in on our meetings the whole time.”

added Bobby Deane, “She got Bennington, and she thought the rest of the world should too.”

Silver was one of three finalists invited to campus for an intensive, three-day round of group sessions with fac- ulty, staff, and students. She arrived on Tuesday, April 30, with her husband, Thom, their young daughter, Kumi, and another child on the way. On Wednesday, Silver met with groups of faculty, staff, and students over three sessions, followed by two staff and student meetings on Thursday, and a final meeting with representatives from various College committees on Friday.

“I think of the hundreds of comments on the candidates,” Kornberg said, “What we heard more than anything is that Mariko listens.”

On June 27, three days before the official last day of President Coleman’s tenure, her successor was announced: “Dr. Mariko Silver appointed 10th President of Bennington College.”

Silver had a feeling the moment she stepped foot on campus, as many do, that if given the opportunity to come to Bennington, she would take it. That feeling became a certainty over the following days as she spoke, and listened, to the community.

“When I came here to interview, I didn’t get the standard questions,” she said. “I got much better, more insightful versions that were rendered and articulated in ways that indicated that people really care about this place—in nuanced and subtle ways.” 

When her name became public as a candidate for the presidency, she learned another thing about Bennington: its alumni are everywhere.

A friend’s grandmother called. another friend’s daughter sent an e-mail. Notes from all over the country began pouring in.

“People were coming out of the woodwork,” Silver said. “and what struck me was the passion that people feel for this place—the degree to which it’s captured their hearts as well as their minds, and shaped their ways of being in the world.”

She also heard from search firms working on behalf of other institutions. Some were much larger and wealthier. Others were better known. “But none,” she said, “were as interesting.”

“Bennington is very distinctive,” she said. “Given the national conversation about the importance of thinking interdisciplinarily, the Bennington approach of applying creativity across the curriculum—not privileging one kind of intelligence over another, but seeing how you can maximize all different kinds of intelligence when trying to answer a question—is a huge part of what Bennington has to contribute to the world. and we should be shouting it from the rooftops.”

Silver has been doing exactly that.

Already at work championing the value of a Bennington education in the press and with external groups, Silver is also examining ways to improve upon the College’s signature programs and to reclaim its position as the place where rigorous innovation and experimentation define an education.

She got Bennington, and she thought the rest of the world should too. 

“Bennington is the longest running experiment in higher education in the United States and I think our alumni stand as evidence that it has also been one of the most successful. The absolute resourcefulness a place this size demands of its students, its faculty, its administrators—it permeates everything—and has a huge impact on teaching and learning. In a world of diminishing resources, understanding how to ask the questions that really matter and to find creative, elegant, actionable solutions is crucial. It’s an ethos that has been with Bennington since its founding and one higher education needs to be reminded of.”

Silver has invited the community to join her in a vigorous interrogation of what makes Bennington “so Bennington,” with the explicit goal of raising the College’s profile nationally and globally. It is one thing for the College to speak to those who have experienced the power of a Bennington education, she says; making it real for people who have yet to encounter it firsthand is a challenge she is particularly excited about undertaking.

“Bennington has a lot going for it,” she said. “But there’s a lot more work to be done.”