Patience to Listen and Lead In a quirk of fate, it wasn’t until he returned to academic life some 40 years later that Friedman learned he actually couldn’t do just anything he wanted. “While I enjoyed the job right from the outset, it took me a surprisingly long time to understand that as president, you don’t control your product. A university is distinguished by its teaching, scholarship, and research, and that is the domain of the faculty. At the beginning, when we were dealing with a period of disruption and change, I found that lack of control to be frustrating, but it taught me a great deal about the art and skill of subtle leadership. I was really a professional for my whole career before I came to Pace, so this was my first true executive job—it formulated my management style.” Over time, Friedman found that patience and listening were critical skills for success in university leadership. To cite just one example, he describes working with the faculty over a period of time on ways to make technology a central part of the teaching and learning experience at Pace. “It was clear to me early on, as it was to many others, that technology was becoming more and more important in higher education. When I first arrived at Pace, most of the talk was about how we teach with the advent of developments like MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and distance education, but I felt that the much more profound impact would be on what we teach. Technology has become a game changer in almost every discipline. Evolutionary biology is less about bones now and all about DNA. Marketing relies on data and analytics. Every day I hear about a discipline that’s being totally changed by technology. I felt strongly that no institution is doing its job if it graduates students who aren’t technologically proficient in their fields.” Rather than charging forth to try to dictate change, however, Friedman says he just kept talking and sharing ideas with people across the University. “The faculty took the lead on creating a committee on how technology informs what we teach and our students are gaining critical new skills in the classroom. So I learned
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| Leadership – Winter 2017
• Pace University
that if you talk about an idea enough, and it’s a good idea—that’s the critical part—then the academy will work together to adopt it.” Today Friedman says his favorite part of leadership is putting the right people together to find creative solutions to important problems. “As an executive, I’m very experimental. I like to try new things, and I like to encourage others to try new things as long as they won’t sink the ship if they don’t work! And a lot of the time, they won’t work but you have to create an environment in which that is okay.”
On Students and Alumni Friedman says that while he wishes he could have spent even more time with Pace students, he will forever treasure their spirit, tenacity, and compassion. Each year, he looked forward to being “the first and last word” as he welcomed students during Convocation and sent them off to their bright futures at Commencement. One of his favorite student memories is meeting with the members of Pace’s College Fed Challenge Team fresh off their triumphs in the New York and national competitions. “They were so excited and proud,” he recalls, “and I was so excited and proud for them. This was a tremendous accomplishment for these outstanding young people and their faculty coaches. It showed them that they could compete and succeed at the highest level, against any students in America. The best part was when I asked them the secret to their success, they simply replied, ‘We work harder than anyone else.’ I can’t think of a better testimony to the power of a Pace education.” Friedman also recalls the power of the Pace Community in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, which caused tremendous destruction across New York. Without power, phone reception, or subway service, students in Lower Manhattan were effectively cut off from the rest of the city. Forced out of their residence halls, they bunked on cots in One Pace Plaza while Pace