By Norman Jameson
E
lizabeth Davis has been cracking gender ceilings for a long time, so recognition as the first female president of a historically Baptist university doesn’t really resonate with her.
“I understand the significance but I don’t think in terms of ‘first female,’” she says about becoming the 12th president of Furman University on July 1, 2014. “I never have felt gender related barriers to the various stages of my life. I do recognize, however, there are a lot of women who have.”
To those women and to the thousands of female students and alumna of Furman, Davis says it is important to recognize that women may not “do things the same way as men so we don’t need to make changes in the way we think, act and lead.”
Davis spoke during an interview that moved from her modest second-floor office, to a golf cart scooting to the cafeteria for lunch amidst hundreds of students, to a car zipping across campus to address a senior adult continuing education crowd.
Davis is adamant that Furman be a community player in continuing education. Furman’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute has 1,617 active members who participate in 90-plus classes offered three times a year.
It’s not enough for the university to say to its Greenville, S.C., home, “We’re Furman. Aren’t you lucky that we’re here?” She believes institutions like hers must join other organizations to improve the quality of life in their communities.
At Baylor University for almost 23 years before arriving at Furman, Davis was the first female interim department head in accounting and business law and the first female provost at the Waco, Texas, school. She didn’t approach those roles as a female, but simply as a professional, an attitude she encourages in others.
The attributes of leadership — ability to articulate a compelling vision, financial savvy and confidence — are the same for a man or a woman, she says. But if there is a gender distinctive among these qualities, it may be in confidence. Unfairly, a soft-spoken woman is likely to be perceived as lacking confidence, whereas an obviously confident woman may be perceived as arrogant.
“I don’t tend to get too wound up on how I do this differently from a man. I just do it how I do it, and for this period in the life of Furman University, this is who’s president,” she says softly — and confidently.
Davis doesn’t give much consideration to gender when she considers her rise to the presidency of Furman, founded in 1826 by Baptists in South Carolina. Furman, the oldest private university in the state, started as a men’s academy and theological institute. The theological institute broke off in 1858 to become Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, now in Louisville, Ky. In 1992 Furman ended its ties to the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
Presbyterian minister Roberta Hestenes was the first female elected president of a Baptist university, though she likely would have no more interest in the claim than Davis does. Hestenes was elected president of Eastern University in St. Davids, Pa., in 1987. The school in suburban Philadelphia is associated with the American Baptist Churches USA.
Furman’s presidential search committee gave no consideration to gender. Florida businessman Robert Hill chaired the 16-member committee that found Davis and he says the word “gender” never came up.
Hill, a former Furman student and father of a Furman graduate, also chairs the Furman board of trustees. “We feel really lucky and fortunate to have her as president of the university,” says Hill, whose committee was “just looking for the best candidate” among the more than 100 applicants. “We could not be more thrilled to have her there.”
Most of the 45 member universities of the International Association of Baptist Colleges and Universities have broken from the governing relationship they had with their founding state Baptist conventions. Furman is not a member of that group — in part because it no longer identifies as uniquely Baptist — but it has been invited to join.
“Our character and values statements hearken back to the heritage from which we emerged, and the Baptist principles on which we were founded still characterize us,” Davis says. “We’re a university that welcomes and cherishes conversations of faith and in fact supports students’ spiritual journeys, whatever those might be.”
The chaplain’s office supports 23 religious organizations on campus and “students are encouraged to learn about the faith traditions of others as they continue to explore their lives of faith, or no faith,” she says.
Davis, herself a Baptist, says her largely white, upper middle class campus has “a long way to go in terms of creating a climate and culture where all faiths feel welcome, but we’re not doing that by presuming that faith doesn’t exist.” She is proud that Furman supports and honors faith exploration, while “many institutions founded on typically Christian values have totally abandoned the conversations of faith.”
Had Furman faced the controversial request concerning the Muslim call to prayer that Duke University received in January, there likely would have been a similar negative reaction, she says. “Yet we claim to be open to students and faculty of all faiths.”
“We have to be careful not to abandon our own ideals and beliefs as we welcome other faiths, but there is no way we can learn to live in harmony if we don’t practice living in harmony,” she says.
“The path for us, at least today, is to be sure we are creating the kinds of connections, the kinds of support groups, the kinds of spaces that help students develop and grow in their own faith. So that more than likely will involve associations with interfaith groups.”
Davis, 52, will be inaugurated March 18 to a post she never really thought about until she had been provost at Baylor, which some describe as the nation’s largest Baptist university. As provost, she actually had responsibility for more faculty and budget than she does as president of Furman.
T
he big difference is that now she is “ultimately responsible.”
Although Davis was the top academic officer at Baylor — which is more than five times as big as Furman — she was not “the final decider.” There was always another decision maker above her, as well as a defender between her and disgruntled parents or peers. And she didn’t deal with athletics, the bane of many presidents.
“I run into people who want decisions to be made but don’t want to make the decisions because they don’t want to deal with the consequences,” she says. “That’s not a luxury a president has.
“It’s different being ultimately responsible, regardless of the size. When I let myself think about it, the gravity of the responsibility can be overwhelming.”
And yet, she possesses a realistic and pressure-relieving perspective that institutions are “resilient” with a momentum gained through their existence that leaders can only accelerate or decelerate — but seldom kill.
Davis’ biggest “but most rewarding” challenge so far has been to find as many forums as possible in which to listen to gain an understanding of Furman, “while not standing still.”
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avis was born in Texas to Charles and Marilyn Boozer. She grew up in New Orleans, her dad a dentist who later taught dentistry. Her mother was college educated and stayed home with the children. She worried about Elizabeth participating in sports because she didn’t want her piano-playing daughter to hurt her fingers. But Elizabeth was pushing six feet in height and teams wanted her.
She attended an all-girl public high school, and was never discouraged from considering any kind of career or opportunity. At her father’s funeral several female dentists said, “Your dad really paved the way for us. He was a very strong supporter of women in dentistry.”
“That revealed a piece of his character that turned out to be very influential,” Davis says.
She graduated from Baylor in 1982 with an accounting degree and met her husband, Charles, while both were attending graduate school in North Carolina, she at Duke and he at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Their son, Chad, is a senior at Wake Forest University, while daughter Claire, a high school senior, is hoping to attend Furman. Her father-in-law, Cedric Davis, is a former Wake Forest trustee.
The Davises recently co-authored the textbook Managerial Accounting.
Davis feels progress toward gender parity in the professions has “stalled” after earlier advances. And yet, at a Harvard University seminar for new presidents last summer, 23 of the 50 participants were female, a higher ratio than Harvard had ever seen.
Forbes reports that overall 26 percent of U.S. college presidents are women while more than 57 percent of students in colleges and universities are women.
The future of higher education is always high on the list of questions tossed Davis’ way in open forums.
She doesn’t fear losing tuition income to MOOCs (Massive Open Online Classes), as much as she keeps a wary eye on the demographics looming over colleges. It is critical that Furman, with a 12 percent ethnic minority student body, “attract a more diverse population.”
She feels President Obama’s goal to make tuition costs at community colleges free to some students is not a threat to Furman or other universities.
“It’s a noble goal. The devil’s in the details and media sound bites avoid the devil.”
Still, she has a ready answer to justify the cost of a private education. Private universities were never designed as a “low cost option” and instead offer an “integrated set of experiences where the academic, residential and experiential work together to develop a student’s potential. The goal being not just a graceful exit from the university with admission to a graduate school or a job, but to a life that’s meaningful.”
“We have to be very clear what space in the landscape of higher education we occupy. And other people have to understand it.”