>> Jane Sanchez: My
name is Jane Sanchez,
I'm the deputy librarian
for collections and services
and I'm also serving as
law librarian of congress.
On behalf of the Kluge Center
and its director, John Haskell,
I would like to welcome
you to our Conversation
with a Librarian series.
This year the Library
of Congress of focused
on change makers,
those individuals
who have challenged
accepted norms
to strengthen our nation's
most fundamental principles.
In addition to many library
programs related to this theme,
I urge you to visit the
newly opened exhibit
on the second floor
of this building.
It's called, "Shall
not be denied."
It chronicles the story of
women who earn the right to vote
and it celebrates
the 100th anniversary
of the 19th amendment.
Today's program is
sponsored by the Library
of Congress' John
W. Kluge Center,
which brings together
the world's best thinkers
to discuss the challenges facing
democracies in the 21st century.
Upcoming events in July
include a conversation
with Walter Isaacson and
a moderated discussion
with Karl Rove and
David Axelrod.
Please check out the
Kluge website, I hear you.
[laughter] Please check
out the Kluge website
for more information,
that's a www.loc.gov/kluge.
And Kluge is K-L-U-G-E,
just to be clear.
Today's event features
a conversation on women
in leadership and two
extraordinary female leaders,
Carla Hayden, who is the first
women and African American
to hold the position, will
be one of our speakers.
Drew Gilpin Faust is a
historian of the Civil War
and the American south,
serving as the Lincoln professor
at Harvard University.
Her book, "This republic of
suffering" was the winner
of the Bancroft Prize.
In 2007, Drew Faust
became the 28th president
of Harvard University, the first
woman to serve in that role
and the first Harvard president
without a Harvard degree.
Dr. Faust is also the
most recent recipient
of the Kluge prize, the
Libraries most esteemed award,
that recognizes an individual
who has an advanced
intellectual understanding
of the human experience.
During the program, the
library staff will be collecting
questions on notecards for
Dr. Hayden and Dr. Faust.
Please write down your question
and we will try to ask as many
as possible during the latter
portion of the program.
So without further
delay, please join me
in welcoming Carla
Hayden and Drew Faust.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Carla Hayden: Oh good
evening and I just have to say
that we've been joined
by the archivist
of the United States,
Mr. David Ferriero.
[ Applause ]
>> Carla Hayden: And
so, I must tell you
that there's one person whose
>> Drew Faust: We've also
been joined by my brother.
>> Carla Hayden:
Oh your brother!
>> Drew Faust: I did not
know he was going to be here.
>> Carla Hayden:
Oh, this is good!
[ Applause ]
>> Carla Hayden: Hello
sir, and you should know
that my mom is here in absentee
of so glad I'm this
close to Harvard.
[laughter] So I'm
getting a lot of points.
Drew, it's just something
when you think about --
we talked just briefly
behind the stage
about your path to leadership.
Did you seek it?
Now you're brother is here
so he is the truth leader.
Did you know or did you say,
"I'm going to be
the first female..."
>> Drew Faust: Well it's
such an interesting question.
I think it began
as a little kid.
Now talking about it is going
to be a little bit different
when him sitting here so you can
watch and see if he nods or not.
But I was really a
bossy little kid.
My grandfather called
me, "Little Miss Fix It"
because I was always telling
people how to fix things,
not anything mechanical,
but just if something was
out of order I would order
people around and say,
"this is how it ought
to be improved".
So I think I had a certain
presumption early on
and my mother was always
telling me it's a man's world
and you better get used to that.
And I seemed to be completely
at odds with that advice,
which is probably why she
had to repeat it so often.
[laughter] But I felt that
even though officially I lived
in this very male
dominated family and world,
the brother whose here is
the oldest of three brothers,
there nevertheless were these
kind of quietly powerful women.
We had two very powerful
grandmothers, one in particular
who terrified her sons,
even though her sons assumed
that they really were in charge.
So I think that this message of
powerful came through in spite
of the really official
structure of the social order
and what my mother
was saying to me.
So in a sense I think
it began then
and then expressed itself
when I was in school.
I went to girls' schools; I
went to a girl's high school
and a women's college.
And so those were places
I could try out my desire
to control everybody else
[laughter] in an environment
in which that was welcome.
>> Carla Hayden: This desire
is strong to control people.
>> Drew Faust: So I would say it
began early and was reinforced
by the kind of education
that I had.
>> Carla Hayden: That education,
and I've heard mentioned other
times, that when you have
like a girl's school or that
when you see women in leadership
and you assume definite roles,
it actually gives
you a different sense
of what women can do.
>> Drew Faust: And this was
very striking to me when I began
to work at Harvard in 2001
and began to get to know a lot
of alums, particularly
alums of my age.
Because when they were
going to Radcliffe,
which was the female affiliated
institution with Harvard
at the time I was in college,
which would have been the 1960s,
there were no female
faculty at Harvard.
There was like one
tenure track member.
So most of the women my age
never saw a female professor.
And my experience
Bryn Mawr College was
completely different.
Where there were men on the
faculty, but there were many,
many strong women who gave me
the idea that maybe I could go
to graduate school and get a
PhD and teach in a university.
And I don't know if I had gone
to Radcliffe Harvard whether
I ever would have been able
to envision myself
in such a role.
So how about you?
>> Carla Hayden:
That's the point
of seeing something
reflected that you say, "Oh,
I could do that because
that person either
looks like me or that."
And then definitely the person
of color, that's something
that is very strong, and I was
part of a female, and still am,
a female dominated profession.
Librarianship, education,
social work and nursing.
Where 85 to 90% of the
workforce are female.
However, the top management
doesn't always reflect
that and the leadership.
For instance, being
the first person
of color was very notable.
Being the first woman really has
the library profession kind of,
"Whoa, a woman."
And that's kind of an
interesting dynamic when you're
in are profession
that's dominated too.
Now you had, we talked
about too, was it different
in different academic fields?
Like the leadership or
assuming the leadership?
>> Drew Faust: Mmm-hmm.
I think different academic
disciplines have quite different
cultures, that some
are more aggressive,
some have much smaller
representation of women.
In the humanities, women have
gained positions much faster
than in some of the natural
sciences and some for example,
economics, some of the
hard-social sciences.
We can see in different
graduate schools at Harvard,
different percentages
and kind of the emergence
of pathways at different rates.
Engineering for example,
we worked very hard to try
to encourage women to go into
engineering, computer science,
electrical engineering
and so forth.
Because the numbers there are
not comparable to the numbers
of women in the life sciences
for example, where they are
in most life since concentration
majors they're more
than half now.
So it does vary a lot.
So given that, obviously
the pool
from which leaders can
be drawn is smaller,
the pool of women is smaller
in some fields than others,
so I think that makes a
substantial difference as well.
>> Carla Hayden: So when
you leave the field and get
into university leadership
provost, things like that,
what starts happening then?
>> Drew Faust: We have had
substantial representation
by women in the Ivy League
over the last decade or two
so that has changed
significantly.
The numbers of women leaders
in higher education is better
than the number or
percentage of women leaders
in say the Fortune 500.
I think that in higher
education,
women have certain
attributes that are well suited
to leadership in higher
education because you've got
to be a good listener.
In higher education you
don't have ultimate control,
for all the things I said about
how I like to control people.
It's actually a joke because
you don't really control anybody
when you're president
of Harvard.
[laughter] You have the right
to make an argument to somebody
and hope to persuade, so it's
kind of the power to persuade.
That is in my view, very aligned
with how we socialize
women in the United States.
That women are taught as
little girls I believe,
to be listeners more
than boys are,
and to try to be the negotiators
within families and so forth.
Now this is of course not
all women and all men,
this is the middle, there
are tails on both ends.
But overall I believe that women
do have this characteristic
that's nurtured in them
from the time they're small
and I think that's suited them
well for university leadership
where you've got
to be a listener,
you've got to be a negotiator,
you've got to be
including people,
you've got to be figuring
out where everyone stands
and you don't just
order people around.
Now I know you don't
actually just direct people
around in many other
professions,
but I'd say on balance
there's more distributed power
in a university than there is
in a corporation or business
or many other areas of endeavor.
>> Carla Hayden:
Do you think some
of that is also generational
because with some
of the younger generations
coming up there's not as much
of that channeling
of those traits?
>> Drew Faust: I would be
curious about your thoughts
on that too because I
often find younger women,
it takes them a while to
come to terms with some
of the challenges of gender.
They've taken a lot for
granted and then they come
up against a barrier and it'll
be hard for them to identify it
as having to do with gender,
they're surprised by it.
And so, I'm not sure.
Would you agree with that?
>> Carla Hayden: I've seen that,
and I had a very
sobering experience
that taught me what
generation I was
in when I was describing
being in a generation that had
to wear the little bowties
and the shoulder
pads and all of that.
I hear some ruffling there,
not a good fashion look.
And they were amazed.
And the first time that we
got to wear pants to a meeting
and how, "Whoa", and they
just couldn't even believe it.
>> Drew Faust: Mmm-hmm.
>> Carla Hayden: You mean,
you couldn't wear pants?
No!
[ Laughter ]
No, you couldn't wear pants.
>> Drew Faust: These
quite revolutions.
>> Carla Hayden: And
that's the kind of thing,
so that's I think
it was mentioned,
Jane Sanchez mentioned our
suffrage, suffrage exhibit.
And I've seen some younger
people go through that,
younger women, and
they are just shocked.
You mean they didn't
get to vote?
You said -- when does
Virginia give women the vote?
>> Drew Faust: Everyone
should go and see the exhibit
on the women's suffrage, the
women's suffrage movement.
I don't know whether it's
upstairs, or where we are.
>> Carla Hayden: It's upstairs.
>> Drew Faust: And I was
wandering through it last night
and I came across a fact
that I had not realized.
I grew up in Virginia, Virginia
ratified the suffrage amendment
in 1952.
So, I was five years
old before Virginia --
I mean, of course it had to
obey the national ratification
and the installation of the
amendment on the Constitution,
but it did not choose to
actually consent to it
in an active way, until 1952.
>> Carla Hayden:
So when you think
about leadership it being a --
did you in your travel
[laughter] to leadership,
and even though you were bossy,
and you were kind
of [inaudible].
But there was a point
where you had to make more
of a conscious decision to
say, "I'm going to do that".
>> Drew Faust: Let me tell you
a story about my grandmother
who grew up in Tennessee and
lived in Virginia where we lived
and I've been digging
around in family papers
and found a whole series of
letters that were written
by my great grandfather,
a general on the western
front during World War I,
and my grandmother, his
daughter and her mother,
the wife of the general.
There were two children
in the family,
my grandmother and
an older brother.
And while my great grandfather
was fighting the battles
at the very end of World War I,
his only son was killed
in an air accident.
He was part of the
Naval Flying Corps.
And my grandmother writes
a letter to her father
about the death of her
brother, the only son.
And she writes that she
wants to express her sympathy
to her father of the
devastation of all his hopes,
which she knew were vested in
the future of the family name
and the future of this brother.
And she says, "I
know that as a girl,
I can in no way fill
his place for you."
And I think about my
grandmother's life
in which she was this, I
believe, very intelligent,
very talented woman
who felt always
that she could not replace
what her dead brother would
have been.
And what does that say about
gender rolls and the kinds
of things that were
being said long after.
And this was in 1918 that
she wrote this letter.
But those were views that
infused and determined her life
for decades to comes
and that I'm sure
in some way were communicated
to those around her,
including me, generations later.
So those kinds of
assumptions for a long hold
and I think we need
to be aware of them.
This is part of the purpose
of history is to confront that
and see her say that and
recognize what that can mean
in a life and how we need
to understand that in order
to reject it and move beyond it.
So, should did send
messages to me
that her life was a
frustration, I could see that.
Because she was so
powerful and talented
and didn't have anywhere
to go with it
because of these
constraints that she felt.
And so, in some way I think
I felt determined not to have
that happen to me and I grew
up at a time when doors started
to open, and I could
walk through them.
And that made me a
very lucky person
and I think the generations
before me didn't have
that opportunity to become
president of Harvard.
You asked me earlier,
did I have my sight set
on becoming president
of Harvard?
If I'd said at age 10, at
age 20, even at age 30,
"I want to be president
of Harvard".
People would have
thought I was insane.
There weren't any
women on the faculty,
there weren't women
allowed in the faculty club.
How on earth could you imagine
that a woman could be
president of Harvard?
But look at the change that's
happened in our lifetime
so that these kinds of
things were possible.
>> Carla Hayden: I had
the opportunity recently,
and it was a wonderful
opportunity,
to go the Harvard Club,
I'm still trying to get
into Harvard, I'm not giving up.
[laughter] Anyway I can.
The Harvard Club in New York!
And it was so cool,
because this,
if you could please
just walk in.
And there, this beautiful --
there were all these
oil portraits
of distinguished looking men
and then right when you go
in is this beautiful
full colored oil painting
of you in the lobby.
It is gorgeous.
It just --
[ Applause ]
And I kind of said, "I'm going
to be talking to her soon".
>> Drew Faust: Actually I think
that the Harvard Club needs
to move it because they need to
put the current president there.
>> Carla Hayden: I think
it's for [inaudible]
>> Drew Faust: I'll tell you a
story about that portrait also.
It was painted by a man who
had just died about a week ago
at age 94, he painted I think
three or four years ago,
his name was Ray ' . And when
we were talking about how
to pose me for the
portrait he said,
"Why don't you wear
something informal."
And I said, "Nope, I'm wearing
the Harvard presidents' robes."
Because I think I ought
to inhabit that identity
for this portrait and so
he got it and I'm painted
in a traditional
Harvard presidents robe.
>> Carla Hayden: Do you ever
find that sometimes you have
to say, "No, I'm going
to be that" as a woman?
>> Drew Faust: That's
such a great question,
I want to ask you
that question to.
>> Carla Hayden: That's okay,
that was a leading question.
>> Drew Faust: I was always
very aware as president
of representing more than
just me, that I had to --
that people were watching.
And I'll tell you what,
one time when I thought
about this a lot was
when I had to throw
out the first pitch
at the Red Sox game.
>> Carla Hayden: Oh!
Isn't it terrible?
Did you have to practice?
>> Drew Faust: I practiced and
practiced, because I thought,
not only does the honor
of Harvard depend on this,
but the honor of all female
kind depends on how I do here.
>> Carla Hayden: Let me
tell you, I had to do it --
well it was so [inaudible]
"Oh you're going
to pitch like a girl".
Okay, that's the first
thing you practice
and the whole way you
almost hit people.
So, how did you do?
>> Drew Faust: I did fine,
it went right over the plate.
[ Applause ]
How'd you do?
>> Carla Hayden: I did pretty
good and I kept the ball.
[ Applause ]
It's interesting because as
the first and you don't want
to be the last, so did
you feel that pressure?
Like you said, people
are watching and looking.
What does he have on?
What is she is?
It's interesting.
When did you feel it though
and said, "to heck with it,
I'm going to be the
president of Harvard"?
>> Drew Faust: When
I was announced.
The day I was announced there
was a little press conference
afterwards and one of the
very first questions I got was
something about what's
it going to be
like to be the woman
president of Harvard?
And it didn't even
go through my brain,
it just came right out my mouth.
I said, "I am not the
woman president of Harvard,
I'm the president of Harvard."
And I believe that I was afraid
I might get like an asterisk;
you think you have a home
run only it was an extra-long
season; you don't really count.
So I wanted to emphasize
that I was going to be
as much the inhabiter
of that office
as anyone who'd come before.
But I did learn a
lesson quite quickly
that elaborated my
feelings about that.
Right after I was announced I
started getting enormous amounts
of mail, from women and
little girls and parents
of little girls,
all over the world.
People in China, little
girls in Latin America,
people all over the United
States saying how much it meant
to them that there was going to
be a woman president of Harvard.
Or a president of
Harvard who was a woman.
They weren't contradicting
my statement;
they were just saying now
they could see themselves
in a different way.
And one young woman wrote
me from China saying,
"Now I know I can do anything."
And I thought, I have to
own this responsibility.
And so when I traveled I started
going to girls' schools and went
to girls' schools all over the
world and met with young women
in Johannesburg and
Seoul and Santiago,
just trying to stand there
and be whatever they
thought they could imagine
themselves being.
And that I could, I had to be a
woman as president of Harvard,
even though I wasn't going to be
the woman president of Harvard.
>> Carla Hayden: And there's
a fine distinction there.
Do you remember any
of the questions
that they were asking you?
Because they had you
there and they were just
"oh my goodness" just did they
want to know how you got there?
>> Drew Faust: Well, one of my
favorite of these meetings was
with a group of young women in
Japan, and if any of you know
about Japan, it's a society
that has not exactly been
overwhelmingly welcoming
to working women and they
started telling me all
about this and how
when they got older,
if they had babies they would be
expected to leave the workforce
and they didn't feel there were
pathways for them in Japan.
And how could they be encouraged
to change things in Japan?
So here is this group of young
women, and I remember them,
they were in their uniforms,
they all had knee socks
and they were sitting there
and then their teachers
were behind them
and it was a school
associated with Keio University,
the president of Keio
University was there.
And they were so tough and
ambitious and so I just tried
to feed that and encourage them,
and it was such a generative
interaction and I felt
that I'd given them an
opportunity to say all kinds
of things that maybe they
didn't feel free saying
in other contacts
in other moments.
And this was fairly early in
my presidency and about a year
and a half ago I saw the
president of Keio University
and I said, "So, it's eight
years later, what happened
to all those young women?"
And he said, "You
wouldn't believe it.
This one's a doctor and
this ones in business
and this one's going to school."
He was very proud
of these young women
and so I could see how just
raising the subject in some
of these societies, put a
spotlight and gave a kind
of permission to young women,
to think perhaps more boldly.
And that was one of my very
favorite of those interactions.
>> Carla Hayden: And
did they ever ask you
for like, specific advice?
>> Drew Faust: Well,
I often got asked
about the work/life balance.
And what I do about my daughter?
And I would often point to my
husband who was often there
and say what a great
support he'd been
and all things he'd
done, and they needed
to find husbands like that.
[laughter] So he always
felt good about that
and I felt good about that.
So, they often wanted to know
how you have a personal life
and a professional life.
>> Carla Hayden: And do
you think that is something
that a woman in a position
is asked more than a male?
>> Drew Faust: For sure.
So you must have been
asked lots of questions
by young women about it.
>> Carla Hayden: Oh my goodness.
And it's interesting
though, that when they --
you get such energy as you
say, from the young women
because they're ready to go
out and they just want to know.
And one young lady, she was
a girl, she was about ten,
she said, "Did you
ever feel afraid?"
>> Drew Faust: That's
a great question.
>> Carla Hayden:
And I said, "yes".
And then another one asked
me, "were you ever bullied?"
and I said "every day" still.
>> Drew Faust: Great questions.
>> Carla Hayden: They want to
know the emotional part too
and that it's okay
to be a little afraid
or not so sure all the time.
>> Drew Faust: Isn't
there a wonderful --
someone in the audience is
going to know this quote,
or maybe you know the
quote, you're a librarian,
you probably know it exactly.
>> Carla Hayden:
Oh, I can Google it.
[ Laughter ]
>> Drew Faust: That
Eleanor Roosevelt quote
about do something that
terrifies you every day?
>> Carla Hayden: Yes,
I love one as well.
Because, when you look at her
life and the arc of her life
and how she started and what
she went through and she's one
of the people you should
look at and say "Wow,
a woman taking leadership."
So, I have to ask this, I
know it might be on a card,
did you ever get any of that,
what do they call it, push back?
Resistance?
People that you had to say,
"Is this because I'm a woman?
Or is it because I'm the
president of Harvard?"
How did you distinguish
and how do you distinguish
when it might be gender based?
>> Drew Faust: Well, when I
became president of Harvard,
I'm sure there must
have been people
who thought this is impossible.
We can't have a woman
president of Harvard.
But they didn't say, and
they didn't say it out loud
and they didn't say it to me, so
I pretended they didn't exist.
But what I did find
in the initial years
of my presidency is that people
would have certain assumptions
about me that were
really quite gendered.
And one of the assumptions
were that I was too nice
and that I wouldn't be able
to be president of Harvard
because I was too nice.
There's some people who
work at Harvard sitting here
and I don't know what
they think about this.
>> Carla Hayden: Remember,
your brothers here too.
>> Drew Faust: And
my brothers here.
>> Carla Hayden:
Your brothers here.
>> Drew Faust: Yeah,
please don't take any
cards from my brother.
[ Laughter ]
But, I always -- our
father used to say something
that just resonates in my head,
he'd say there's no
excuse for being lousy.
You never have to be
mean and nasty to people.
You can fire someone nicely.
You can be very strong
and be nice.
You don't have to be a jerk.
And so I thought being
nice is a leadership style
and it is not a sign
of weakness.
And I don't know what it has
to do with gender exactly,
maybe women are more likely
to have that leadership style,
we could talk about that.
But I think people began to
see that they better watch
out if they thought they
were going to get away
with something because
I was nice.
And so there was an
educational process
that I believe took place
over the initial years
of my presidency.
>> Carla Hayden: You were civil.
>> Drew Faust: And people would
kind of be alerted to the fact
that some assumption they
made was not necessarily one
that they could rely on.
Another assumption was, I
became president in 2007,
the world fell apart
in 2008 financially.
Harvard's endowment
crashed, we lost billions
of dollars, 27% of
the endowment.
And people assume, how can this
girl historian deal with this?
And I dealt with it by relying
on a lot of people who knew more
than I did in various areas
and trying to be clear cited
and move ahead and
strong and not scared
and bring the community
together and we did just fine.
So that was a bit of
an education for people
who had targeted me with
those assumptions as well.
>> Carla Hayden: And they
saw you being a leader
in a very, very difficult time.
>> Drew Faust: Mmm-hmm.
>> Carla Hayden:
And did they start
to have even more confidence?
>> Drew Faust: That's
a great point.
I remember someone who was a
very experienced businessperson,
finance person alum, and
he came up to me at the end
of the financial crisis,
and he hadn't been
someone who had doubted me.
He'd been a supporter and very
nice and very good to me always,
but he said, "This
university is yours now."
And that was really interesting.
>> Carla Hayden: When
you survive a crisis,
take people through it and
everybody's okay basically.
>> Drew Faust: Mmm-hmm.
>> Carla Hayden: Is when
that a tide can turn.
Wow. So, I have to ask you this.
>> Drew Faust: Okay.
>> Carla Hayden: Your book
is Pulitzer prize winning
and you talked about a
republic of suffering
and just things that
you uncovered.
Like the Genesis of dog tags
and just all of these things.
What are you working on now?
Can we break some news here?
>> Drew Faust: Okay, so I
have spent the last two day
in the National Archives.
>> Carla Hayden: Oh,
that's why he's here.
[ Laughter ]
>> Drew Faust: The beneficiary
of the wonderful work
of an archivist who was
a very young archivist
when I was working on this
Republic of Suffering,
but this week is a now
experienced, established,
senior member of
your team David.
He was helping me out again,
his name is Trevor Plante,
I like giving him shootouts.
>> Carla Hayden: Hello Trevor.
>> Drew Faust: Digging
around, trying to find out more
about this great
grandfather in World War I.
It is part of a larger
project that I hope will result
in a book that combines
personal and family memoir
with actual historical research,
focused on the second
half the 20th century.
Now, how World War I fits
into this remains to be seen,
but I think that set of comments
that my grandmother made
are perhaps a transition
between things that happened
in the nineteen teens
that projected themselves
well into my own life.
I was born in 1947, so second
half of the 20th century takes
about my first 50 years
and lands me at Harvard.
I'm not going to
write about Harvard,
so that gives me a nice
kind of scope of time
where I think the world
turned upside-down in ways
that opened possibilities
for minorities for women
and changed things in what I see
as an extremely positive
direction.
But that's not what
everyone thinks now.
The 60's generation
is seen as disastrous,
we failed in every way and
the baby boomers are awful,
and I don't believe that.
I think that this was a
generation that changed things
in this country for the better
and that would be the kind
of direction that I want.
[ Applause ]
Thank you baby boomers!
>> Carla Hayden: Baby
boomers are right.
>> Drew Faust: So we'll
see how this all works out.
I have a little bit of a test
run; I've written an article
that will be out in the Atlantic
and plugging myself
you said that was okay.
>> Carla Hayden: That's okay.
>> Drew Faust: It will be out
in the Atlantic in August,
which is a combination of kind
of a personal memoir of growing
up in Virginia and some Virginia
history, so we'll see how
that goes and I will keep
at this little project
and take advantage of these
extraordinary library resources.
I can't tell you what a
joy it was to sit there
in the national archives
and just find stuff
and be excited at the treasures.
And last night, seeing
the things
>> Carla Hayden: You know
we have a few things.
[laughter]
>> Drew Faust: Well
the Civil War materials
that you showed me yesterday.
>> Carla Hayden: Oh we pandered,
we brought out the good silver.
[ Laughter ]
>> Carla Hayden: Please, oh
Gettysburg address draft?
[laughter] Take that
Mr. [inaudible].
>> Drew Faust: And
the Women's Suffrage,
the Women's suffrage exhibit.
There is a photograph
in that exhibit
of Harriet Tubman
as an old woman.
You all have to go
see this, it just --
I couldn't stop looking at it.
So, I'm a complete library
archive nut and it's a joy
to be back at it again.
>> Carla Hayden: Oh,
we appreciate it.
Now I know that people want
to ask you some questions,
I see that, and they've
been writing it.
And before we, and
Jane's going to do it.
So you are going to
go back to teaching?
>> Drew Faust: Mmm-hmm.
>> Carla Hayden: Okay.
You are being a professor
so people can take
classes with you?
Oh, cool.
>> Drew Faust: I'll be
teaching in the fall.
>> Carla Hayden:
That would be nice.
>> Jane Sanchez: So,
here's question number one.
How can women in leadership best
support and empower other women?
>> Carla Hayden: It
sounds like Jeopardy.
[ Laughter ]
Question number one..
>> Drew Faust: So we should
both answer this I think.
>> Carla Hayden: Yeah.
>> Drew Faust: I think
identifying women
who can benefit from your
support is part of it, you know.
Who is somebody who needs
a mentor that you can help?
Opening pathways by
having more than one woman.
I think when you have
one woman in a situation,
then that person has
to be "The Woman".
So making sure that there are
numbers of women and counting
and making people
around you aware
of what are the statistics
in this department?
Or, what are the realities?
Because if you start morgue
things then people see what
needs to change and they see
they're making progress towards
change if they are, or
they aren't making progress
towards change.
So I think those are some of the
things that would come to mind.
>> Carla Hayden: I'd
reinforce the need for the data
and being able to objectively
show, here's where we might need
to have some attention in that.
And also, being even
quietly supportive of women
when they are in your field
or you could show some support
and some understanding.
Sometimes that, yeah, we have
to be really conscious of that.
>> Jane Sanchez: Okay.
Please tell us about your
heroines' role models.
Who has inspired you?
>> Drew Faust: Wow, you start.
[laughter]
>> Carla Hayden: Well, you
talked about your grandmother
and I was very pleased,
and I mentioned my mom.
She's still my hero.
And she showed me
so many things.
There was only one thing we
fall out about, she's a laborer,
she's very fair and balanced.
And she always told me to look
at both sides of the situation,
and a lot of times
you don't want to.
[laughter] It's like,
take my side.
But, she has been
a strong influence.
And then I had two grandmothers,
one that loved to read
and introduced me to that.
And another one that really
loved gardening and beauty,
so just having strong women.
And then I was fortunate -- a
lot of strong female librarians.
We used to call them three
named women; Mary, Margaret,
Kimmel [assumed spelling].
[inaudible] If they
hadn't been librarians,
could have run the world.
And I got a chance to.
>> Drew Faust: So I
mentioned my grandmother
who was obviously
a force in my life,
but a really important part of
this for me was things I read
about and characters in books.
And I've been thinking
about what I'd read
as a child recently
and some of the books
that were very influential.
I remember reading,
Anne Frank's Diary.
It just has this enormously
powerful impact on me.
Somebody faced with that kind
of struggle and how optimistic
and aware and intelligent she
was about it, how admirable,
and what a terrible
end it came to.
To Kill a Mockingbird
influenced me hugely.
Now, I could critique that book,
but Scout was a model for me.
>> Carla Hayden:
That's all right.
>> Drew Faust: She was
an extraordinary figure.
Nancy Drew mysteries.
>> Carla Hayden:
Yeah, Nancy Drew!
Nancy Drew.
Singer girls.
>> Drew Faust: Thinking
about strong girls
in books was really, I
think an important set
of role models for me.
>> Jane Sanchez: Why do you
think some fields are more
male dominated?
How can we make it
more balanced?
>> Drew Faust: Well we talked
about that a little bit and part
of what we need to do is
create dynamics in those fields
to support women, to charge
people with the responsibility
for opening them up to women.
But I think sometimes
these fields have cultures
and cultures of combativeness or
cultures of putting people down
and women are often the
people who do get put
down in those kinds
of arguments.
So, I think making some
of the fields aware
of the habits they have and
who is included or excluded
in a field that operates
in those ways.
I think we are so much
more conscious of issues
of not just bringing numbers
of people in, but what kind
of culture are we envisioning
and do people really feel
that they are included and
belong in those cultures?
Or do they just feel that
they're on the margin?
So, thinking about the
cultures of different fields,
different workplaces is an
important part of opening them
up to individuals who then can
participate and contribute.
Otherwise you're cutting
out the genius of the people
that you bring in if
you just silence them
or marginalize them.
>> Carla Hayden: Half
of the population.
>> Jane Sanchez: Yeah.
Young people are
often told to network.
Did networking play an
important role in your careers?
>> Carla Hayden: Oh, I'd
like to hear what you think
about that about networking.
Wow. Have you ever had a sense
that the term networking can
sometimes not be as positive?
>> Drew Faust: Well,
when you were asking
that question I was
just thinking to myself,
I need a definition of network.
And is network running
around trying
to find the most important
and influential people you can
and sticking yourself onto them?
Which I was always
very adverse to them.
I think it was a 60's thing,
it was like they ought
to come find me if
they want me, somehow.
[ Laughter ]
But in the course of
life you do meet people
and that's very important.
I remember once going
to a convention,
a history convention, and
there was a famous historian
who I happened to meet
because he had given a talk
at my institution and he saw me,
and he started introducing
me to people.
And I realized this was
very important, so I tried,
after that, sometimes
to introduce myself
to people in groups.
I'd just walk over
and introduce myself.
And that kind of familiarity
was important ultimately.
So, I do believe it's become a
much more self-conscious project
in the current generation,
than it was at least
in my experience.
But you do need to get
out there and meet people,
I do think it can be obnoxious
though if it's just kind
of climbing up to
manipulate people
for instrumental purposes,
rather than thinking,
"If I get to know this person,
I really can talk to them
about my work and his work
and learn something in that."
>> Carla Hayden:
And learn something.
And sometimes with
profession organizations,
that's a networking, because
they're people in your field
and you went to that conference
and then you're saying, "Okay,
I'm going to go to this session
and that person just
gave a presentation,
I'm really interested in that."
That's a different type of
being part of a community
or opening yourself to
learning and being with people.
>> Jane Sanchez: I often
wonder what's important
than networking, is
creating relationships
and that that's really
more lasting.
But, I digress.
>> Drew Faust: I think, no,
but what you said is important,
because a relationship
has more substance
than just using someone to
climb to the next ladder.
And so, yes it's important
to have relationships
within your profession,
I think that's good.
>> Carla Hayden:
And when someone,
and to have that
relationship be sustained past
that other person's
professional usefulness to you.
One of my best mentors, was
Nettie Taylor, and she lived
to be 104 and she was giving
me advice till the end.
About, some of the -- but she
was the first state librarian
in Maryland.
Oh, she was a pistol!
But she didn't go to conference
-- having those relationships,
professional relationships,
that's the kind of networking,
that's the support for
you and for the person.
>> Jane Sanchez: Dr. Faust,
would you recommend a young
person pursue a history PhD
given the tight market
in higher education?
[ Laughter ]
>> Drew Faust: Lots of
answers pop into my mind.
Every year that I was president
at Harvard I gave a talk
at the end of the year
to the students that were
about to graduate, it was
the Baccalaureate address,
and this speech meant
the world to me.
I just felt so touched
that I would have all these
young people, 1600 of them,
who were going to go on and
live extraordinary lives
and do wonderful things and
I got this sort of last work.
And in every single one
of those speeches I talked
about something, I mean
I had other subjects,
but I always included this,
that I named the parking
space theory of life.
And I think I had to
stop being president
because the parking
space theory of life
with self-driving cars is
going to become irrelevant,
so I couldn't give
this speech anymore.
But, the logic of it was
that when you're thinking
about your life, you should
think about how you park.
And when you part you ought
to go where you want to be
and if you can't find a parking
space then you can have plan b
and try to park somewhere else.
But you don't start
parking 20 blocks away
from your destination because
you anticipate there won't be a
parking space.
That is something
that I do believe,
but I think you also have
to have a certain
realistic assessment of,
are you really good at this?
Is it something that you can
recognize as a little bit
like taking up oil painting
or ballet or wanting
to be a movie star,
because there's just not
that many places for
historians in the academy.
And are you willing to imagine
that a future might not turn
out exactly like it is?
That you might not be
a professor somewhere,
you might be working in historic
preservation or you might be
in some other field using
your history degree.
So I think you need to be
cruelly, rigidly realistic
and then pursue what is going to
give you meaning and enable you
to contribute something
to the world.
You need to assess yourself, you
need to assess the environment,
assess the possibilities,
both for success and failure
and make a clear-eyed decision.
I have a daughter
who is an English PhD
and she is an assistant
professor,
she has a job, which is great.
She's hoping to get tenure,
but just watching her career,
watching her friends, it's
like being on a rollercoaster.
I mean it's like heart
stopping to see the challenges
that I feel, of course for
all the students that I know
at Harvard and elsewhere,
but when it's your own
child it has a special
stomach-churning aspect.
I hope she's not watching this.
[ Laughter ]
>> Jane Sanchez: Okay,
this next one is a doozy.
>> Drew Faust: A doozy, uh-oh.
>> Carla Hayden: Oh boy.
>> Drew Faust: It's
for you Carla.
>> Carla Hayden: No, no, no.
>> Jane Sanchez: Woodrow
Wilson went from Princeton
to the Whitehouse, what is your
country calling you to do next?
[ Cheering and Applause ]
>> Drew Faust: I'll add to this,
Woodrow Wilson like me began
at Bryn Mawr too [laughs].
He taught at Bryn Mawr.
What is my country
calling me to do next?
To be a historian again.
I think that's my
highest and best use.
A thinker, a writer, someone
to defend the humanities,
exemplify the humanities
in a private capacity.
>> Carla Hayden: You can hear
the hunger though can't you?
>> Drew Faust: [laughs]
>> Carla Hayden: Which
I got a good response.
>> Carla Hayden: And Dr. Hayden?
[ Laughter ]
>> Drew Faust: The
country is calling for her
to run the Library of Congress
which is pretty fabulous.
>> Carla Hayden: Could you see
a librarian as -- it's okay.
>> Jane Sanchez: Okay.
Dr. Hayden, did you
know you wanted
to be a librarian
at a young age?
>> Carla Hayden: No!
First a short stop,
when I was 10.
[inaudible] And then I
thought about a lawyer.
I had a political
science history undergrad,
but I hadn't worked, and
so while I was making
that decision, that same
mother I told you about,
said "You know, maybe you should
get employment while you make
this decision."
And so I would go and in
between job interviews,
where they politely told me,
"You were in school
all your life,
you never had a job
and so come back."
I would go to the library
because I loved libraries,
I would hang out.
And then one of my colleagues
who had just graduated say,
"Hey Carla, you here
for those library jobs?
They're hiring anybody."
[ Laughter ]
Hey, I'm here for that!
It's the truth.
I went upstairs, I like
books, I like to think.
And then they put me with
the young lady who was
in library school and I found
out about librarianship
as a profession.
And David knows, we've talked
about how we got
into librarianship.
And that's when I said, "Oh wow,
somebody designed the building.
Somebody selected
these materials.
This didn't just
spring up from magic."
So I call myself an
accidental librarian.
Yeah.
>> We have time for
one more question.
>> Jane Sanchez: Okay.
This is another doozy I think,
are there lessons to be drawn
from the prime ministership
of Theresa May in Britain
for women and leadership?
>> Carla Hayden: Oh, that's you!
>> Drew Faust: So, there
was an article that came
out about Theresa May,
about six months ago.
And I was reading this article
and it just infuriated me.
Not that I have any particular
pro or con Theresa May,
I really don't have a judgment
on the entire Brexit mess.
I don't know how
they got into it;
I don't know how they're
going to get out of it.
But this article was so
sexist, it kept talking
about her clothes, it kept
demeaning her as a woman,
and I just felt, aren't we
beyond this in how we write
in very sophisticated
American publications
about international figures.
So, I would say that
Theresa May,
for whatever shortcomings
she may have,
has had a pretty unfair
shake in lots of ways,
in the kind of gender attacks
that have been made against her.
I don't know if that
answered the question,
it just gave me a
chance to, you know.
>> Carla Hayden:
To talk about that.
>> Drew Faust: Yeah,
talk about that.
Sound off on that.
>> Jane Sanchez: I've got a
couple more if we have time?
>> Yeah.
>> Jane Sanchez: What advice do
you have for the next generation
of librarians, particularly
women, women of color and women
in or seeking leadership roles?
>> Carla Hayden: Do
it, don't be afraid.
Just do it.
[ Applause ]
We talked about that.
We talked about that in the
first you know, president woman,
you don't want to be the last.
I don't want to be
the last librarian
of congress that's a woman,
or something like that.
So I think that that's
the advice.
Step out into it,
own it and do that.
>> Jane Sanchez: When you
do still encounter people
who are beholden to patriarchal
norms, how do you call them out,
push back against that
without creating enemies?
>> Carla Hayden:
Is it being nice?
>> Drew Faust: I'd
say being effective.
I'm trying to think.
I can think of instances
where I have called people out
but usually I try to do
it in a more subtle way
than a direct confrontation.
Make evidence, some of
the misapprehensions
that are perhaps being shared.
Marginalize the views.
But I can remember one instance
where I just was very frank
with someone and said, "This is
my responsibility, not yours.
I will exercise it."
Things like that.
So, I think doing your
job, try to do it well,
try to be effective
and rewarding people
who don't have those views
and so it becomes evident
that those kinds of
views are not welcome
and are not embraced
and are not indulged.
How about you?
>> Carla Hayden: Do you
put on blinder sometimes?
>> Drew Faust: Well sometimes
you just let it go, you know?
>> Carla Hayden:
It's not worth it.
>> Drew Faust: Yeah.
And sometimes if
it's just someone
from a certain generation
or a certain background,
you know you're not
going to have any effect.
>> Carla Hayden:
You're just nice.
>> Drew Faust: Yeah, yeah.
>> Jane Sanchez:
Okay, we are done.
I want to thank both
of our speakers.
>> Carla Hayden: Well
I want to thank Drew.
[ Applause ]
>> Carla Hayden: I want to take
a point of personal privilege
to thank you for being someone
that I've looked to as well.
>> Drew Faust: Oh my goodness.
>> Carla Hayden: And
being that person
that you can really say
exemplifies the best
in leadership, so thank you.
>> Drew Faust: Well, you're
very generous to say that.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]