ncy Cantor moved from her post as vice provost for academic affairs - graduate studies and dean of the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies last September to become Michigan's provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

In the University's second-highest position, Cantor directs both the academic and budgetary aspects of the University, and thus oversees functions that bring together all sides of the University community--faculty, students and staff.

Cantor received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 1974 and her doctorate from Stanford University in 1978. She became assistant professor of psychology at Princeton and was promoted to associate professor in 1981. From 1981-1983, she spent a sabbatical and then a visiting year at Michigan. She was appointed at Michigan in 1983 as associate professor of psychology and was named professor in 1987. She served as a research scientist in the Research Center for Group Dynamics in the Institute for Social Research in 1987-91 and was associate dean for faculty programs in the graduate school in 1989-91. She left Michigan in 1991 to teach at Princeton, where she was chair of the Department of Psychology, and returned in July 1996 to take the Rackham deanship.

Cantor was interviewed by Michigan Today's John Woodford in January.

Michigan Today: Experts say that being a provost of a major research university is the most demanding job in all of higher education. Did you have a good sense of what you were getting into? Do you have plans for how to put your personal stamp on the job?

Nancy Cantor: I had a lot of contact with my predecessors, so I had a good sense of the challenges of the job, but you never really know what it's like until you hit the ground running. Not only that, events occur that one can't anticipate, both exciting and tragic events.

It's important for me to bridge the gap that I think has existed between the formal, academic and intellectual life of the University and the informal life. I believe I should remind the campus that "academic affairs"--an aspect of the University that I'm officially vice president for--involves all constituencies of the campus. My job is to bring those constituencies together. The provost hears the voices of the faculty and deans, but I also feel we are in this with the students and staff. We want to symbolize the fluidity of the boundaries within the University and between the University and the outside world. It's a priority for me not to be insular or isolated in this position.

You are familiar as a student, teacher and administrator with a small private college, two private universities and a large public research university. How does this background serve you in the job you hold now?

I treasure a lot of my different experiences in different settings and contexts. I deeply love Sarah Lawrence. It taught me many lessons, and a very important one was the value of cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary work. Another was the value of learning through action.

I developed a fondness for different kinds of talent there, because we were exposed to scholars, performers, writers--people who might not present on paper the credentials that have come to be expected of the "standard" academic in a large research university, but who were not only deeply knowledgeable and productive scholars, but tremendous teachers as well. Another piece from Sarah Lawrence is that I have a strong belief in the value of creating rich and diverse local neighborhoods in a large campus like this one. LSA, Engineering and other Schools and Colleges are doing that quite well, and I resonate to that because of my undergraduate days.

From my graduate education at Stanford and teaching at Princeton, I gained an enormous respect for laboratory science and for the collaboration of research groups. I'm committed to merging education and research, to putting faculty together with graduates and undergraduates on joint projects.

You have the key role in maintaining the excellence of the faculty--the prerequisite of any great university. What can you report in that area?

It's a tremendous challenge to keep recruiting and retaining the best faculty. At Michigan, we compete with the best, and fortunately we have many assets--this is a lively, diverse, exciting campus where there is lots of opportunity for collaboration. It's a very collegial community. There are large numbers of supportive departments that embrace young faculty and students. It's a good place to get serious work done, and that means a lot to any outstanding scholar.

You also have great budgetary responsibilities and power. Is it merely a chore to work on a large budget, however vital the purpose it may serve?

Budgeting is certainly complicated, but it is integrally tied to our academic mission. They go hand in hand. The budget is a vehicle for enhancing our academic mission. I happen to love working with budgets in such a context.

My colleagues and I are looking to use the budget to support a lot of exciting ventures. New collaborative programs and many new ventures in the arts and humanities, in technology, in dynamic programs in health-related fields and policy, in the life sciences, in the environment, in social and behavioral research, in new living-learning communities, and in bringing to the forefront some of our cultural institutions on campus.

One reads often today in journals like the Chronicle of Higher Education or Lingua Franca that higher education in our country in a period of crisis, if not multiple crises. Do you agree?

Throughout my whole career I've been hearing about crises in my field and crises in higher education, but they are both chugging along quite well, I'd say. The real challenge for flagship universities like ours is to stay in the vanguard of intellectual discovery and education while remaining cost-effective and accessible, given our costs, to as broad a group of students as we can.

It's imperative that the University remain at the cutting edge in its strengths and that it continue to develop new strengths. That's hard to do when we also have to be cautious about costs. But to say that is not to say that I believe in the "crisis perspective." Different historical periods have always and will always enforce different ways of thinking about the trade-offs between efficiency and accessibility versus openness and exploration.

It is extremely important, however, that we not allow a hugely widening gap to grow between students and faculty with independent resources and those without those resources to come to our nation's institutions of higher learning.

You are the first woman to serve as provost at Michigan. Do you feel any special pride and any special pressure as a pioneer?

I think it's a terrific statement about this university. It says that we are genuine about our interest in having all voices heard. That we are open for talented people regardless of their background. I think it's great if people look at my holding this job as another example of the possibilities that exist at this school.

Do you have any distinctive approaches to leadership?

I really don't think I have one. At least I don't think about it. All I can say is, I like to see a flow of ideas from all directions, whether I'm in a leading position or not. As provost, I want my colleagues' input--the deans, directors and administrators--but I also want a flow from students, faculty and staff. And believe me, that flow is taking place. I don't need to prime the pump.

What roles do you see the alumni of the University playing in matters that affect you as provost?

They have an enormous and continuing role. In one sense the University is a bounded entity with a central life here on campus. But it is an extended and permeable entity as well. It crosses time and space in its contact with alumni. It's extremely important to keep them connected to the University as stakeholders in the University.

They should know of the current projects we have undertaken: the undergraduate initiative, interdisciplinary programs, the efforts in the affirmative action arena, and of how important we see the diversity on campus as a tremendous asset to our intellectual ventures.

The alumni are part of the Michigan family. We want them to have a voice. I have informal and formal contacts with them. They send me letters, and I also have formal contact at luncheons, meetings and various events. I just saw many at the Rose Bowl.

We might draw in alumni with particular expertise to advise us on certain projects. Each School and College has various boards and advisory committees on which alumni sit. I meet them that way, too.

Beyond the alumni community, do you think the public at large is convinced of the importance of higher education?

There is lots of public support for the idea that universities benefit society in fundamental ways. Arguably, higher education is one of the most cherished American institutions, and not just here in our country but worldwide. And not just because they are places for the production of new knowledge but also for what they are in and of themselves--places that bring people together in a sort of mini-laboratory for society. We are an example to society. This country has always had a strong investment in knowledge-building and in the university as a prototype for an evolving society.

I say we are a laboratory for civil society because the university has as its most cherished value that it provides a place where people can disagree thoughtfully and passionately, but with civility.

Does it disturb you to read studies that purport to show that today's students are uninterested in politics, that they are self-absorbed?

When I recently read such an article, I thought back to only a couple of days earlier when 300 students packed a room in the Union for the kickoff of our Environmental Theme Semester. Students today have different views and proclivities than some other generations, to be sure, but I saw lots of energy and excitement there. So IÕm skeptical of reports that take that view of students.

As a professor of psychology and research scientist, what are some of the issues in your own academic field that still occupy your attention?

I am a social and personality psychologist, and I currently have a grant project with collaborators here and at Princeton. My project concerns the different kinds of subgroups that form on college campuses, and how they integrate with or isolate themselves from other groups. We're looking at groups of students at several Ivy League schools and at Michigan, groups such as athletes, performing arts groups, extracurricular groups of varying intensity, social groups and others.

My perspective is on how individuals adjust within their social environment and take on tasks, how people grow from the interaction with one another. We want to see what sorts of experiences promote well-being and how they do so.

President Lee C. Bollinger, you and other University leaders have been firm and outspoken in your defense of affirmative action and diversity programs. What thinking lies behind your stand?

There are many different reasons for having programs like affirmative action, but there are three highly important aspects to my commitment.

One is that higher education as a public institution is an enormously valuable opportunity for social and economic mobility in this country and abroad.

Two, undergraduates are here at an important time in their life path. On this point, my perspective is directly connected to my scholarly work. When you look at notions of intelligence, of social intelligence, you see it is actually important for the development of a healthy personality that young people be in contexts that allow for multiple, rich and diverse talents to be expressed.

You learn about yourself in part by watching others. By learning how much you have in common with people you thought of as quite different, and by learning about the thinking and experiences of people who are different, you open up possibilities for your own growth in knowledge and development. Our students are at a point on a trajectory when they are ready to be challenged in perceptions and habits, when they are ready to see different possibilities of the self. We, the University, help students achieve these goals by providing a rich environment. The scale alone of the University of Michigan fosters many dimensions of diversity.

There are some categories of life experiences in America that are extraordinarily likely to be brought to the surface when people of diverse backgrounds come together. In that sense, race matters a lot, just as many other things matter, too. Diversity is an enormous opportunity for human growth. You run into people from towns you can't imagine having grown up in. These are opportunities we owe to our students. They are very critical. We have the responsibility to create the richest educational environment we can to challenge our students and ourselves to look beyond the typical, beyond the routine. One of the deepest lessons we can learn is about the commonality of human beings.

And third, we have a responsibility to make a Michigan education contribute to the most engaged and active society we can create. We want to diffuse a Michigan education as widely throughout our society and the world as we can. We cannot afford a disengaged society. I feel we have a responsibility to cast our net as widely as we can.

What influences early in your life, growing up before college, seem to come into play as you tackle your duties?

I have a family committed to intellectual exploration and activism. My parents cared a lot about the world. My dad was a lawyer and my mother worked for city government and as an academic.

I grew up in the center of New York City. It was vibrant, diverse, active. It had hard edges and soft edges. It's had an influence on my most deeply held value, and that is the value of the multiplicity of human talent.