Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/372574
w w w . i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m S e p t e m b e r 2 0 14 • I NSIGH T | 17 ONE OF THE PRIMARY REASONS I'm in higher education is I'm passionate about social mobility and the opportunity that I hope all citizens of this country have to do better than their parents did. A college experience is one of the only ways that social mobility is working in society today. For U.S. families in the lowest income quartile, if your child does not go to college he or she has only a 5 percent chance of breaking out of that quartile in their lifetime. If the child goes to college, the probability of breaking out of that quartile increases to 84 percent. I never thought I would be a college president. I had worked in higher education for close to 20 years, first at Columbia University for 11 years and then at Princeton for nine. About three years ago the president at Princeton at the time, who was my boss, pulled me aside and she said, "OK Mark, it's time to start thinking about the next step for you, and I think you'd be a great liberal arts college president." She pointed out that I am on the board at my alma mater, Vassar College, that I care a lot about classroom education, I had taught for a number of years at Princeton and I enjoyed greatly connecting with students. I thought about Mark Burstein on the value of a liberal arts education U P F R O N T FACE TIME P H O T O G R A P H B Y M I C H A E L L E S C H I S I N / I M A G E S T U D I O S , F O R I N S I G H T Mark Burstein began serving as the 16th president of Lawrence University in July 2013. He moved to Appleton aer serving as executive vice president at Princeton University and before that, in several roles at Columbia University. He sat down with Insight Editor Margaret LeBrun to talk about what drew him to Wisconsin and his aspirations for the liberal arts college. [continued ] »