Elizabeth Nathans
On her firs
t night in the historic 19th century Harvard Square home she occupied as Dean of Freshmen at Harvard College, Elizabeth “Ibby” Nathans had a visit from the police. “They came by to say, ‘You do understand that you should never go out alone at night,’” she recalls. And indeed, she’d found herself in a bit of an unpredictable neighborhood in 1992: earlier that very evening someone on the street had tried to take her purse. “I said no,” she says simply. “And I quickly learned that if I made it a point to know the names of the people who lived in the Square and greeted them, they would treat me as part of the community and not challenge me.”
That blend of firmness and kindness is something she learned and perfected in her long and impressive academic career that took her from western Massachusetts to some of the nation’s most prestigious universities, first as a top-tier student and then as an academic dean. Along the way she demonstrated the kind of pluck and determination that women of her generation needed in order to succeed at a high level. After leaving Harvard in 2005, Nathans bought herself another antique home – a much smaller one, here in Wayland.
Early Years in Western Mass
Nathans was born in 1940 in Springfield, Mass., to parents who had been high school sweethearts. “My father was in the construction business with the company that had built the Chrysler Building,” she says. “My mother did community work.” After Ibby finished second grade, the family moved to Longmeadow, where she lived until she left for college. “There was no high school in Longmeadow, so I went to the MacDuffie School,” she says. “In my day, MacDuffie was a small girls’ school in Springfield.” The school was known for its rigor, and its students typically attended selective colleges and universities.
Nathans says many of her classmates went to one of the “seven sisters” colleges, and so did she, choosing Vassar. “I knew almost nothing about Vassar, but I knew I would study history,” she recalls, having recently read Winston Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. She thrived at Vassar, becoming lifelong friends with a faculty member who would influence her academically and professionally.
At Vassar, Nathans began to demonstrate the self-advocacy skills that would be essential throughout her career. “The faculty member I most admired was on leave my junior year, and rumor had it he would be leaving Vassar. I found out that Johns Hopkins would accept students for their PhD program who hadn’t gotten their undergraduate degree yet,” she recalls. “I wrote to C. Vann Woodward at Hopkins” – one of the country’s most highly-regarded historians, who would eventually win a Pulitzer Prize for History – “and he wrote back and asked me to come meet him.”
Making Her Place in Academia
Nathans was entering the challenging world of academia and would find herself in demand as a gifted and hard-working graduate student. Before she could travel to Hopkins to meet Prof. Woodward, he called her to say he was leaving for a position at Yale. “I decided not to go to Hopkins because they hadn’t announced his replacement,” she says. “I decided to go to Harvard for the summer, where David Donald was visiting.” Historian David Donald, best known for his biography of Abraham Lincoln, would win two Pulitzer Prizes for Biography. “I took his course, and asked him for a stacks pass to Widener Library,” recalls Nathans. Stacks passes were not typically available to undergraduates. “He said, ‘Read this six-volume set and come back next week to discuss it with me.’ I got the stacks pass.”
Nathans did, in the end, go to Johns Hopkins to earn her PhD in History, because David Donald went there to teach and she became his student. “I got my degree at Hopkins in four years, which was insane, and met my future husband, who was also a David Donald student,” she says. Her husband took a teaching position at Duke University, and in 1966 they moved to North Carolina, where they would live for about 25 years, raising a son and a daughter.
Initially, Ibby taught history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “Nepotism rules meant I couldn’t teach at Duke,” she says, “but eventually I took a position there as a dean. I knew nothing about deaning,” she recalls with a laugh. She was fortunate to find a few strong female mentors, including Juanita Kreps, Dean of what was then Duke’s Women’s College, who eventually became the nation’s first female Commerce Secretary under President Jimmy Carter. With guidance, and her good instincts, Nathans figured things out.
Demanding Equal Pay
But Duke hadn’t yet figured Ibby Nathans out. She was young – just entering her 30s – when Duke’s undergraduate men’s and women’s colleges merged. Most of the other deans were much older and male. “At the end of my first year, at a luncheon for the deans, they asked me to clear the table when the lunch was over,” she remembers. Worse, she eventually realized she wasn’t being paid fairly. “Duke hired a dean with less experience and without the degrees I have,” she says. “They gave him a house and appeared to be paying him more than me.” She asked for an adjustment -- for fairness -- and when Duke didn’t respond, she filed a federal complaint. “It took the feds two weeks to tell Duke to give me back pay and a housing allowance, and equal pay going forward,” she says.
Nathans started the Academic Advising Center at Duke, serving all freshmen and most sophomores. “By the time I left, we had a wonderful staff and a building to ourselves,” she says. She was the only dean covering first- and second-year students, including members of the now legendary Duke basketball team. “They weren’t very good in my early Duke years,” she recalls. “They got better around 1978, when the team went to the NCAA finals. Some students had been admitted primarily for their basketball skills, but Duke wasn’t fully prepared to support them academically. Back then, I spent a lot of time working with the coaches and the athletic staff to help players acclimate to college and to ensure that they would be able to graduate. There are several from the 1977-1978 team who are still in touch with me.”
Breaking New Ground at Harvard
In 1990 Nathans’ husband left the family, and by 1992, her two children had finished college. She decided it was time to leave Duke. “Harvard posted a position for Dean of Freshmen,” she recalls. “I didn’t think I had a chance, but I hoped I might at least get an interview. Harvard didn’t typically hire non-Harvards, and it wasn’t a women’s position; there had always been a man in that role. But, I spent a few days at Harvard, and they offered me the job.” Nathans shifted into high gear to move from Durham to Cambridge within 60 days. “I put my office at Duke in order, packed up the North Carolina house and sold it, packed up my mother, who lived nearby, and drove up and down the eastern seaboard three times in two months.”
She arrived to take up residence in the seven-bedroom historic home in Harvard Square with six cats, two dogs, and a sense of excitement. In her new role, she oversaw all aspects of freshman life. “You’re on call 24/7,” she says. “That used to be typical when deans carried both academic and non-academic responsibilities. My kids remember this from Duke, too. People call you at any time of day or night, on weekdays and on weekends, and you’re off to the hospital, or talking with the police or with professors or with parents.”
Still, she says, “Being at Harvard was an immense privilege.” She worked under Harvard’s then-President Neil Rudenstine, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy Knowles, and Dean of the College Harry Lewis. “They were fantastic people, and I learned a lot from them,” she says. “I was able to bring in more mature staff, and I learned how to develop people. My staff were smart, accomplished, and committed to their work,” she says. “Today, most of my former Harvard staff colleagues are college presidents, provosts, vice presidents, senior deans, or foundation executives,” she says.
Nathans remained at Harvard until 2005, when new president Lawrence Summers essentially cleaned house. “Larry Summers was brought in to do things differently, and he did,” she says. She had planned to retire, but Boston College asked her to start an academic advising program. “I said I’d commit two to five years,” she says. “I went there with no staff, bare bones, starting from scratch. I hired a former Harvard colleague, and we worked well together to get things started. He eventually took it over.” She left BC in 2010, with a plan to consult. But life had other plans.
A Sobering Diagnosis
“In 2011 I was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma, and I was told I had about a year to live,” she recalls. “I was working with a young internist at Brigham and Women’s who had been one of my students at Duke and with a great oncologist team at Dana Farber. I had surgery, but there really was no further treatment available then.” The bravery and buoyancy she had shown and cultivated during the course of her life and career were essential ingredients in her recovery. “After my surgery, everyone said it would be four months before I could walk again. But a young orthopedic surgery resident who had been a pro football player said that was nonsense. He sent me home in a walking boot.” Slowly, she regained her strength, mobility, and health. She volunteered with the Parmenter Hospice in Wayland, and with Neighbor Brigade.
In 2012, a new opportunity to use her skills presented itself. “I had adopted a beagle from Beagles of New England States (BONES), and then another, and I began volunteering with the rescue group. In 2012, I was asked to do more, and I’ve been ‘temporary’ Adoptions Director ever since,” she smiles. A life-long animal lover, she was a natural fit with the organization, where she is also a board member. “It’s very rewarding,” she says.
“Keep Doing Things”
Her advice on aging? On a practical level, she says to keep some structure in your life. “When I retired, the father of a former student advised me to structure three days of my week to have some obligations,” she says. “I’ve found that to be very good advice.”
And on a personal level: “Keep doing things. Your abilities may change, but adapt so that you stay active mentally and physically. Keep doing things even if you think you can’t….No one understands why I survived cancer,” she adds. “Nobody thought I wouldn’t die. But one of my young doctors kept saying, ‘Keep doing as much as you can.’ He was right.”
For Elizabeth Nathans, “do as much as you can” seems to have been a lifelong inclination that has been good not just for her, but also for all those who have been lucky enough to be under her care.