When Peter Barker '70 P'01 became the ninth chairman of the Claremont McKenna College Board of Trustees in July, he brought to the position experiences that included the challenge and success of having steered the College's recent strategic planning process. The resulting plan, designed to guide the College through the next 10 years and unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees last March, reflects a few of Barker's most notable skills: problem-solving, consensus-building, and facing down a challenge.
The two-year strategic planning process involved more than 130 participants, including trustees, students, faculty, staff, parents, and alumni, and examined virtually every facet of the institution. It posed questions such as: How can CMC continue to pursue its mission, but do it better? How can CMC attract better students/ leaders and a broader range of backgrounds, viewpoints, and life experiences? How can CMC ensure that its faculty of teacher-scholars is outstanding and continues to become even better?
"Most of the areas addressed in the Strategic Plan go to those core issues," says Barker. "We tried to confront external challenges while preserving what we do best. We'd like to continue on the same course but do it even better, strive for a higher plateau."
Barker said the process benefited from drawing on the strengths and experiences of both the Board and President Pamela Gann. "The plan encouraged perspectives from the trustees, the president, and the College's constituencies, and certainly became stronger through this partnership."
Barker attributes his success as a leader in corporate, civic, and philanthropic service to his ability to approach a situation free from preconceived conclusions. "It is important to allow others to participate," he explains. "Genuinely encouraging others to do so is important to the process. It gets people engaged. I've always felt there's much more to be gained by a group effort, and I intend to follow this approach as chairman of the Board."
Barker, who received an MBA from the University of Chicago, stepped down last May as an advisory director at Goldman Sachs & Co. He had been with the firm 32 years in a variety of senior roles, including general partner, directing the firm's West Coast investment banking activities. On the personal side, besides CMC, his community involvement includes leadership roles in several of the area's most influential philanthropic organizations: Huntington Library trustee; Music Center governor; USC Keck School of Medicine overseer; W. M. Keck Foundation director and treasurer; Fletcher Jones Foundation director; YMCA of Greater Los Angeles vice chair, and Los Angeles Area Boy Scouts Council former chair. He has served on the California State Senate Commission on Corporate Finance Governance and sits on the boards of Ameron International, Stone Energy, Inc., and Avery Dennison. He and his spouse, Robin, are the parents of three grown children, including alumnus Todd Barker '01.
Whether it's civic involvement or board room decision-making, Barker says problem-solving doesn't vary by venue. "I look at just about everything like a puzzle," he says. "There's usually a solution to the puzzle that will come out of the process of examination, whether it's a company's capital structure, or a policy at CMC."
The mission
"It's a priori that CMC is a unique entity, and that our mission is also unique. In the strategic planning process, it became very clear that increasing the size of the College was not on the table for the life of the current strategic plan, and that our mission is sacred."
The Faculty
"The future of the College is very much going to be shaped by the faculty hired over the next 10 years. The departments by and large make the decisions on faculty hiring. I'm comforted by the fact that the people who are here now are going to be making the decisions. So clearly, those people who have a view on what kind of faculty should follow them will have an input. That's not going to be imposed on anybody by some outside agent."
Measuring Results
"Things like a new student center, athletics facilities, and academic buildings that may be on the horizon are easy to measure in the context of the Strategic Plan, that is, how they assist in reaching our overall goals. But the plan also sets as a goal a ranking among the top 10 liberal arts colleges in certain key areas, and ranking of the government and economics departments among the top three. Our progress will be assessed annually, using criteria that we developed, not criteria that somebody else imposes on us, to evaluate each one of those areas."
Investing for the Long Term
"Colleges across the nation are grappling with financial challenges to their endowments resulting from this current market. CMC's philosophy on the endowment has always been, to my knowledge, that equities will outperform fixed income instruments over a long period of time. If you look over any long period of time, 100 years, 50 years, 25 years, by and large equity will outperform fixed income. We had a roaring bull market up until March of 2000. The bottom then fell out of the market. During that bull market, certainly in the '90s, our endowment appreciated geometrically, in large part because we were 100 percent in equities. With the downturn of the market, we took it on the chin. But if you look at how we've done over a long period of time, indeed our philosophy has been borne out. By being in equities, our returns are higher than they would have been than by being in a combination of fixed income and equities, or, certainly, 100 percent fixed income. At the same time, we have looked carefully at the risk in the portfolio and have taken a number of steps to address this risk."
Staying Connected
"As alumni, there are many ways we can participate. One way is to just be active, involved, and knowledgeable about what's going on at CMC. I think it's important for alumni to try to stay in touch with students. If you've got children who are in school here, then you're much closer. But if you've got a nephew or his friend, son, or daughter who happens to be in school here, seek them out and ask them about their impressions of the place and compare your experiences. You may be surprised to find more similarities than differences. The low student-teacher ratio, the intimacy, the small classes, the kind of sports activities, the on-campus events, these are all similar to the way they were when we were students. I think most alumni get a good feeling about that. The place hasn't changed in any radical way."
The Consortium
"Being a member of the Claremont consortium is an important asset and a unique strength, as well as an occasional challenge. Overall, it's tremendously beneficial to be part of the consortium, and CMC will continue to play an active leadership role within The Claremont Colleges."
Our Greatest Asset
"Our students are our product and our greatest asset. They are the reason we're all here. We want to continue to attract the traditional kinds of CMC students-actively engaged, outgoing, curious about learning, but also possessing a dimension to their lives that's beyond academics. In short, we want leaders."