Nancy Cantor grew up in New York City during the socially turbulent ’60s, dreaming of becoming a ballet dancer. After returning home from dance lessons, she joined family dinner discussions about the continuous stream of major news events spawned by the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. It was in this context that she began to embrace the values of diversity and change. “Social causes were very important in my family, and growing up during the height of the civil rights and women’s movements, I was constantly exposed to the issues of citizenship and public engagement,” says Cantor, who will begin her tenure as Syracuse University’s 11th Chancellor and President in August. “I was actively involved in social causes and did a lot of exploration of New York City’s many neighborhoods, ethnicities, and cultures.”

Two pivotal experiences as a teenager helped shape her work as a social psychologist: She volunteered with the Encampment for Citizenship program in a rural coal-mining town in West Virginia, and she participated in an international exchange program, living for several months in a small fishing village near Bergen, Norway. “These were really eye-opening experiences and got me thinking about how to cross boundaries between different kinds of people,” she says. “You become much more observant about yourself and the world by fumbling around in another person’s culture. While initially that can be nerve-wracking, you also learn how rewarding it can be to bridge those gaps.”

Courtesy of Madeleine Cantor Brechin Madeleine Cantor Brechin, left, celebrates high school graduation with her parents and brother Archie.

Throughout these early experiences, Cantor nurtured her passion for dance and the arts. One reason she chose to attend Sarah Lawrence College, a small liberal arts institution in Westchester County, New York, was because of its dance program and its commitment to the arts. “It was a very experimental, artistic, and creative place,” she says. “It was a perfect school for me because I really developed my interest in interdisciplinary work and creativity—in all its forms.” Because the school required no specific academic majors, she studied everything from anthropology and literature to visual art and psychology. Through this framework, she learned that the creative process could be applied to everything, even an intensive independent study she took in mathematical number theory.

After graduating from Sarah Lawrence in 1974, she enrolled in the doctoral program in experimental mathematical psychology at Stanford University, knowing she wanted to become a professor. Throughout her studies, she moved between several research areas, including cognitive psychology and math modeling. She eventually settled on social psychology, a hybrid field that examines individuals in a group environment. Today, she says she continues to draw on her education daily, using an interdisciplinary approach to problems and examining how individuals develop identity through full participation in social groups and connections to others. “It’s so important for a university to think about questions of society and individuals, how to prepare future leaders who can defuse conflicts, and how to make people feel comfortable enough to take risks, try new things, and change,” she says.

Broadening Perspectives
Cantor believes strongly in people’s ability to change and grow. She has focused much of her scholarly work on how individuals can alter their self-perceptions by taking advantage of new opportunities and stretching their comfort zones. She incorporated those theories into her work as chair of the psychology department at Princeton University; dean of the graduate school and then provost and executive vice president at the University of Michigan; and chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Interdisciplinary work and diversity on a campus are valuable because they change people’s perceptions of themselves and the world,” says Cantor, who was named Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at SU. “Theoretically, we all operate rather automatically from a whole set of default ways of seeing the world based on our habits, upbringing, and culture. A physicist and an artist think about the physical nature of the world in different ways. But you get them together, and each starts thinking differently on how to view a problem while trying to describe it to the other person.”

Keeping her mind open to people who may differ from her has had a profound impact on Cantor’s life, personally and professionally. As a tenured faculty member at Princeton University on a yearlong sabbatical at the University of Michigan, Cantor ventured outside her newly formed social circle in Ann Arbor one night to go on a blind date with a graduate student in environmental sociology. The student, Steven Brechin, was a Protestant from the Midwest who came from a working-class family. Cantor, a Jewish New Yorker, grew up in a household of intellectuals—her mother, Marjorie, an expert on aging, and her father, Aaron, a lawyer. “Even though we came from different worlds, we had similar values and views on life,” says Brechin, now her husband of 22 years. “We talked about this and how it ties in to Nancy’s interest in diversity. Sometimes it’s great to interact with people you wouldn’t normally think of as being part of your social world.” Of course, in their case, he adds that Cantor’s interest in football and other sports helped strengthen their bond. “She had this strange combination of being a warm person, a well-established academic at an early age, and an avid sports fan,” he says. “What could I do? I had to marry her.”

In a less literal sense, Cantor has been instrumental in arranging marriages between diverse departments at academic institutions. At the University of Illinois, she created 11 cross-campus initiatives that pull together faculty from a variety of disciplines to study such issues as family resilience, art and technology, globalization, aging, and food security. “Even at a time of budget cuts, she pushed for excellence from our faculty and students by investigating issues that required expertise from across the spectrum,” says Jo Thomas, assistant chancellor for public affairs at Urbana-Champaign, who is moving to Syracuse University to continue her work with Cantor. “We’ve gotten a number of grants from corporations and foundations to support this research in a large part due to Nancy’s enthusiasm and vision. She’s excited about Syracuse’s support of interdisciplinary projects.” Cantor also established several cultural centers at Illinois to help groups better appreciate and share their cultural understanding with others. “Nancy has said that diversity is not an afterthought,” Thomas says. “You can’t just tack it on. It has to be a cornerstone of what you’re doing.”

Steve Sartori After being introduced at a press conference, Nancy Cantor listens to a student as David Smith ’66, vice president for enrollment management, looks on.

Principled Approach
Cantor’s commitment to seeking diversity and incorporating multiple perspectives has sometimes thrust her into controversies. As provost of the University of Michigan, she defended the school’s admissions policy against a lawsuit that sought to eliminate the consideration of race in admissions. “Encountering differences, rather than one’s mirror image, is an essential part of a good education,” Cantor and Michigan president Lee Bollinger co-wrote in a 1998 op-ed article in The Washington Post. “Race is educationally important for all students, because understanding race in America is a powerful metaphor for crossing sensibilities of all kinds.”

Her unwavering support of affirmative action at Michigan drew the backing and respect of campus members, says Abigail J. Stewart, professor of psychology and women’s studies at the university. “Most of the campus was extremely proud of Nancy’s clarity of vision and capacity to articulate the reasons that affirmative action is the right policy for UM admissions,” Stewart says. “She was an inspiring example of someone who thought the issues through, knew what she thought was right, and pursued that view in an unconflicted way.”

As chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Cantor listened to the complaints of some campus members who believed the Fighting Illini’s mascot, Chief Illiniwek, disparaged American Indians. She took more than two years to consider the pros and cons surrounding the issue before ultimately issuing a statement calling for a new mascot. Her comments drew fire from some townspeople and campus members, and she became the target of a smear campaign. “Sometimes academic leaders have to take controversial stands to remain authentic with their own belief systems and their own perceptions of what is important for the institution,” Cantor says. “I believe the mascot was divisive and I needed to express that.”

Compassionate Leadership
Cantor’s strengths as a decisive and tenacious leader may be surpassed only by her compassion for those she leads. Upon learning of a University of Michigan student’s death, Cantor, as provost, immediately met with the student’s family. “Nancy felt, in a very personal way, the loss of any member of the campus community,” Stewart says. “She automatically sought to be present in those painful, powerful, and very personal moments. She is openly concerned and caring about people—faculty, students, staff, alumni, everyone—as individuals, and she communicates that concern and caring directly.”

Cantor expresses her concern for employees through her actions as well as her words. At the University of Illinois, she was instrumental in initiating new child care and family planning programs. “It improves the atmosphere of an institution to be aware that employees are balancing their work with other responsibilities,” says Cantor, who is the mother of Madeleine, 19, and Archie, 14. “The more we, as an institution, can be realistic about and supportive of that, the better. My family is very important to me and engaged in what I do.”

For the Cantor Brechin family, work and family life often overlap. Madeleine Cantor Brechin, a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says she appreciates the experiences she and her brother were afforded by growing up on college campuses, though sometimes the spillover from her mother’s work wasn’t always a positive part of family life. For example, the controversy over Chief Illiniwek led townspeople to put ads on billboards across town that read: “Keep the chief, retire Cantor.” “Mom is always careful about wanting us to hear about a potential problem from her first,” Madeleine Brechin says. “People can say some really awful things, and sometimes I want to protect her from that. It’s hard to see her whole life get played out and twisted around in the newspaper. But she is such a strong woman, and she does a great job of separating work from home.”
Cantor grew up in a two-income household at a time when many mothers stayed home. This reinforced her notion that she, too, would balance work and family. “I never really thought that I wouldn’t do both,” she says, adding with a laugh: “There have been many times I thought I couldn’t do both, but I never thought I wouldn’t.” She believes strongly that each aspect of her life enriches the others and that her children benefit from seeing their mother always doing her best. “It teaches them resilience,” she says. It has also instilled in the children a deep respect for their mother. “I am extremely proud of my mom for breaking gender boundaries as the first woman to take some of the positions she has held,” says her son, Archie Brechin. “My mom is a wonderful person. She is hardworking, efficient, and someone who strives to make this world a better place.”

New Energy
Those who know Cantor say the Syracuse community can expect a leader who will bring endless enthusiasm and vivacity to her work, as well as the strength and presence of a person three times her 5-foot frame. “She is remarkable for her absolute unwavering tenacity once she has taken a position or made a commitment,” Stewart says. “It is rare to work with someone who is so utterly and deeply reliable. When she says she will back something, she simply lives up to that.” Jo Thomas predicts Cantor’s refreshing mix of realism and optimism will spread across campus. “She makes time for anyone, and she’s always interested in what other people have to say,” Thomas says. “The only way she’s able to do that—and run a huge institution—is to work all the time. But she enjoys it and she’s fun. She really cares about people.”

Thomas says Cantor’s only weakness might be pushing herself too hard. Cantor’s husband agrees. “She would work 24/7; no one works harder than Nancy,” says Brechin, a sociologist who has been appointed to the faculties of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Maxwell School, and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. “She is an inspirational, dynamic leader and her energy level will amaze everybody.” Brechin says he is responsible for ensuring his wife makes time for rest and relaxation, and the family has already started exploring Central New York’s outdoor recreational areas.

Seeing people envision new futures for themselves and succeed is one of Cantor’s greatest pleasures. She enjoys witnessing the transformation of students, the excitement of the faculty’s scholarly achievements, and the accomplishments that result from campus and community collaborations. “The great thing about a university is that you’re both changing the individual lives of students and faculty members, and you’re changing the world via discoveries,” Cantor says. “You’re charting a course for who’s going to lead the world and you’re actually and substantively creating things that do change everyday life.” Instead of perceiving herself only as an administrator responsible for budgets and bottom lines, Cantor sees her primary role as Chancellor as an agent of change. “Leading a university is about exploring the life of the mind,” she says. “It’s about development, discovery, innovation, and changing lives.”