Michael Bassis: putting students first

Utah Business, Oct, 2002 by Todd Bjorklund

It's a surprise to learn that Westminister College's new president, Dr. Michael Bassis, once flunked out of college. After attending one of New England's traditional, all-male boarding schools, he went to Brown University. There, he says, "I discovered this new species of human being that I was fascinated by, so I spent the better part of my first year learning what these creatures were all about and didn't bother to go to class very often."

After flunking Out, he ventured to New York City and worked on Wall Street for a year. He realized that the financial world was not for him, so he applied for readmission to Brown, from this inauspicious start, Bassis went on to earn a doctorate in the Sociology of Education from the University of Chicago. He says he chose academia because "I had a number of powerful educational experiences as a student that had a huge impact on the way I thought. I was taken with education's capacity to transform people's lives," After 10 years as a professor, Bassis became a school administrator. "It enabled me to have a much more direct impact on the educational climate, more so than as a faculty member," he says. It also allowed him to apply what he had spent his career researching and teaching. He has since held administrative positions of increasing responsibility at a number of colleges and universities, most recently as president of New College of Florida.

Calling the presidency of Westminster the "capstone" of his career, Bassis accepted the position because, although the Board of Trustees expressed pride in what the college has accomplished over the last 10 years, they realized that "to stay in one place really means to slip backwards. They were looking for leadership that will enable the college to take great leaps forward."

At Westminster, Bassis sees his role as "an educator whose job is to help the institution create powerful environments for learning. Raising money and building buildings are just means to that end." He values the smaller size of Westminster because "students are the center of the enterprise, not an afterthought" and feels strongly that "student learning has to drive everything we do." Although he intends to ensure that Westminster continues to be, as he says, "healthy in terms of its fiscal position and healthy in terms of its culture, " he will collaborate with faculty, staff, students and alumni to "build on the strengths of what is here and to identify a compelling educational vision that will lead us to greater levels of prominence."

Since succeeding Dr. Peggy Stock as president of Westminster College in June of this year, Bassis is still settling in. However, this New England native is looking forward to living in the West for the first time. He says that he and his wife, Mary, "both enjoy new places, new people and we both have a sense of adventure. We think it will be a wonderful experience to live and work in Salt Lake City."

Todd Bjorklund is a Salt Lake City-Based freelance writer.