For more than two decades, her work to elevate and amplify the multiplicity of human experience in higher education has galvanized the imagination about who we have been and who we can become.
The daughter of an educator and a musician, Williams was raised in Detroit, MI and Madrid, Spain where she was immersed in arts and culture from an early age. She is an award-winning poet and essayist and the recipient of numerous fellowships, grants and honors. Today, when not on campus or connecting with RISD alumni and friends of RISD around the globe, one can often find her wandering art galleries or museums, at live theater—one of her first loves—reading or watching British murder mysteries and spending time enjoying the company of beloved friends, both human and canine. Williams earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from New York University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Cornell University. In April 2022, she became the 18th President of Rhode Island School of Design.
My arts practice is poetry. I am, by nature, training, and vocation, someone who seeks to understand systems (human, organizational, societal), interdependencies and interconnections, and how and why humans create, understand, and traverse our world. So, while I don’t write many poems these days because I haven’t the kind of heart-space nor time to muse deeply and quietly, as president of Rhode Island School of Design, my leadership relies quite heavily on my inclinations as a poet and creative to use these interrogative lenses and capacities. So, on the one hand, it’s fair to say I don’t manage being both an active poet and a president well at all. On the other hand, the two states of being – the mindsets of poet and CEO – are in constant, and as far as I’m concerned, necessary communion with each other.
As a writer my measure of success is if I believe I have written something that is of value to others and, importantly, will be of value to others long after I am gone. In relation to the production of writing and timelines, and because books of poems are treated differently than, say, a novel might be where timelines are much more rigorous—no. I do not measure success in my arts practice the same way or under the same or even similar timelines as I do as president of a college. For instance, as a poet I write when and what I care to write and about what I care to write about—in my own time. Typically, the book needs to be completed before I can shop it to potential publishers. So, whatever timeline I am working against is self-imposed and only a measure of my own ambition or lack thereof. In my presidency, timelines are exact and exacting—budgetary, Board, academic calendar, admissions, federal and local, etc,. So success is measured both by our efficacy on behalf of the organization’s mission and annual outcomes and in relation to the quality of the education we deploy and if we meet our timelines while achieving positive outcomes.
In my first job as an assistant professor, I was fortunate enough to land at a small liberal arts college that is known for its intellectual rigor. What I learned at Reed was to be exceptionally thorough, deeply inquisitive, collaborate across departments and with people in dissimilar fields, seek to understand another’s point of view (especially if it is counter to yours), concede where necessary, and be intellectually exacting—probing and pushing and lifting up every single rock until the entire terrain is as clear as possible. These lessons have served me well as a leader and Board member, and have helped me find novel solutions to seemingly intractable problems.
Have fun. A former boss told me that she always seeks work where she can have fun. When she told me that, I didn’t get it. I was much younger and it seemed a frivolous answer. But I get it now. Having fun for me is to be in a constant state of learning, expansion, and creation in service of being impactful. Having fun is to be so “in it” that I don’t want to get out of it. That is the primary secret. The other three are: be someone others want in the room, be exceedingly effective—leave no doubt, and don’t suffer fools.
Beyond my mother whose curiosity about and eagerness to engage other people and different cultures is second to no one I’ve ever met, there are many. Mackenzie Scott comes immediately to mind. Her belief in being of service, her “get it done; go direct” attitude regarding philanthropy, her commitment to leverage her philanthropy to amplify social justice: wow.
Joy. (And that would have been my answer before the VP Harris put joy on the ticket).
Well, I wouldn’t be a good art and design school president without providing an art and design answer: I’m THRILLED to see the obsession with gray getting the boot in interior design. I’ve been waiting for this for about five years, which may be one year after the trend started.
