Q & A with President William M. Anderson Jr.
On July 1, President William M. Anderson Jr. will end his three-decade tenure at Mary Washington. He and his family will move from Brompton to Hilton Head, S.C. President Anderson was gracious enough to engage in a parting question-and-answer session with University of Mary Washington TODAY. During the wide-ranging discussion, Dr. Anderson revealed through his words, his gestures and his expressions a deep-seated affection for and devotion to Mary Washington.
Q. What do you love most about Mary Washington?
A. Its people – the people who work here, the people who go to school here, the people who serve on its boards.
Q. What will you miss most about Mary Washington?
A. Its people.
Q. How would you describe yourself?
A. Conservative, reserved, traditional in my thinking, totally consumed by this institution.
Q. What matters most to you?
A. This place…the exposure to many different types of people. My grandchildren, my children, my wife – they all mean an awful lot to me. I look forward to having more time to spend with them. I want to take them on trips so they will get to see people in different parts of the world. [Instead of the President’s Travel Club], I will lead a Grandad’s Travel Club.
Q. What motivates you?
A. A positive attitude. I believe in not giving up. Sheer fear also can be a great motivator. That’s what I experienced in the hospital [after suffering a brain aneurysm in 1996]. A nurse brought in a wheelchair with my name on it. A doctor told my wife to find a nursing home for me. Those were horrendous moments. I was determined to walk again. Wheelchairs and I did not get along.
Q. What books have you read lately?
A. One Christmas in Washington. I love reading about Churchill and Roosevelt. I like biographies. I read extensively about the founding fathers and that time period. I like to study different cultures. I am reading The Earth is Flat now.
Q. What spot at Mary Washington is the most special for you?
A. The backyard area of Brompton. It’s a little piece of the country located in the city. I like its quaintness…the history of the whole area unfolds below.
Q. Who inspires you?
A. I was greatly inspired by the dean of the business school at Virginia Commonwealth University, Curtis Hall. I worked my way through undergraduate and graduate school. I will never forget sitting in his office one morning. I had been working so hard and I was so tired. He said to me, ‘It’s all in your attitude. Look on the bright side: You are working toward something.’ He helped me see that life is all about how to get along with and work with people. Now, I tell students all the time, ‘You come here equipped with the best thing in the world: your attitude. You have total control over it. All you have to do is perfect it. It can make you or break you.’
Another great inspiration has been Roy McTarnaghan. He was associate director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, and brought me on board. We have been lifelong friends. He just retired as executive vice chancellor of the Florida university system.
Of course, former Mary Washington president Dr. Prince B. Woodard, whom I worked for both in Virginia and at the West Virginia Board of Regents, was also a great mentor and inspiration to me. He taught me what hard work was all about. He was really a man of his word, and a man not concerned about making the hard decisions.
Q. What are your post-Mary Washington plans?
A. I look forward to something I haven’t had in the past 33 years: control over my schedule. I plan on doing things I want to do when I want to do them. I think it’s kind of exciting. … I’m looking forward to more time to study, to read, to travel. I intend to learn languages and use the phenomenal powers of the Internet. With a computer, it doesn’t matter where you live, you have access to treasures.
Q. What would you like for your legacy to be?
A. I would like to be able to look at this institution and see it continue to improve year after year…to remain an inspiring academic environment that continues to draw the best and the brightest to study here and to teach here.
I am proud that we have kept the human scale of the enterprise intentionally small. So many teachers’ colleges have been transformed by growing larger. What we have done here is respect our strengths. The future is so bright, [Mary Washington] can go in many different directions.
[My successor] will not be coming in to solve problems, but to continue building. I would like to believe I helped put the institution in an excellent position for this transition. It’s a classy place; it deserves a classy transition.
I am excited about my new status: No. 1 UMW cheerleader.