by Joanne Beckham

In addition to the items one would expect to find in the office of a dean at a top-tier institution, the office of the dean of the College of Arts and Science contains a few curious items. "Whenever the chairmen come asking for money, I wave the magic wand and give them play money," said Ettore F. "Jim" Infante. "It's important to maintain the civility that is characteristic of the college by injecting humor so that we can laugh together." Possibly for inspiration, his office also features a sculpted likeness of the famed slayer of windmills, Don Quixote. On June 30, Infante will step down as dean of the College of Arts and Science for undisclosed health reasons. During the three years he served as dean, Infante has overseen several initiatives to strengthen and advance the University's largest college. Joanne Beckham, editor of the alumni magazine for the College of Arts and Science, recently spoke with Infante about his time at the University and his hopes for the future of the college.

Q: What do you think your legacy will be? What are some major contributions of which you are the most proud?

A: One of the things of which I'm the most proud is having been associated with such a good place, with such a good faculty and such good students. And hopefully I've served them and the central purpose of the college, which is to learn and to teach, to the best of my ability. I deeply regret that this has been a much shorter period than I certainly ever thought it would be. I'm pleased about appointments that we have made to the faculty. I'm pleased with the plans for the new biology building that is under construction now. I'm especially pleased to have had the opportunity to contribute to sustaining what is a wonderful, wonderful enterprise and a unique one. Vanderbilt is one of the few scholarly universities with a very high commitment to undergraduate students. I would like to think that I have contributed to sustaining that spirit, the very particular nature of this place with its sense of civility, which is leveraged on a commitment to excellence. Excellence and civility very seldom go hand in hand. Few places exhibit this level of civility, but at the same time have the commitment to be the best they can be. Places that really go after excellence -- especially excellence in research -- can be rather cutthroat, rather ugly. This place is not.

Q: You mentioned you are proud of appointments made to the faculty. Who are some that stand out for you?

A: People like Leah Marcus -- what a wonderful appointment in the English department, a wonderful scholar, a wonderful colleague and a fantastic teacher. Dennis Dickerson in history -- a very senior faculty member, a great teacher. Ned Porter in chemistry. I've mentioned the chaired professors, but some of the younger faculty, the very young people, are just as bright as they can be. I think in the next year we are going to have a young Chinese mathematician, Guoliang Yu, who is going to have a major impact. Last year we had an appointment -- again in mathematics -- Professor Alexander Ol'Shanskii, who is going to be a real intellectual leader. We appointed four young people in psychology last year -- two associate professors and two young assistant professors -- who are outstanding teachers and at the cutting edge of scholarly activities. I am pleased with every single appointment we have made.

Q: In what way is the college different today than when you took office?

A: I would like to think that the college is very much the same in some ways. Some of the things that I found most appealing in coming here were the values and the nature of Vanderbilt and of the college. It seems to me that our task is, as the world changes, to try to find different and better ways of sustaining enduring values. This happens with each new generation of scholars and new generations of students. What I would like to think, and I hope and I pray, is that I've made a contribution to sustaining the unusual quality of this place, the unusual commitment to real values such as teaching, learning and civility in preparing young men and women for fruitful and demanding lives, and in providing the means and environment that nurture scholarly and research advances. ... We are here to urge them, to mentor them, to teach them how to do it. After all, our purpose is to stretch our students -- be they graduate or undergraduate -- intellectually and morally and also physically. They discover they can become all that they can be. And we also have been doing the same thing with the faculty in our scholarly and research activities.

Q: What were your biggest challenges as dean?

A: It's always a challenge to balance the budget and to invest our financial resources wisely, not only for the present, but also for the future. Deans always have to make choices. For there are so many good things that the college does, so many opportunities and so many possibilities, but there are never either the resources or the number of people or the number of students to take advantage of all these things that are so wonderful. So choices must be made, and to make them wisely is a demanding and difficult challenge.

Q: Do you think the next dean will have the same kind of challenges? Are there others that you see down the road?

A:This is an ambitious place. Because we're ambitious, we have to run very, very hard; so do our competitors. Moreover, we want to advance in relation to the competition. The deans of every college at Vanderbilt will have to try, together with their faculty colleagues, to identify those areas and initiatives to be undertaken that will permit the college and Vanderbilt as a whole to rise to the next level of visibility, so that Vanderbilt will be among the foremost colleges and universities in the United States. At the same time, we must ensure that Vanderbilt retains its own unique character. One of the challenges of any dean at a place like Vanderbilt is to make sure there is the right leverage between undergraduate education and scholarship, not opposition, and that each supports and amplifies the other.

Q: What do you mean by "leverage?"

A:People like to talk about balance between teaching and research. I don't believe in balance; I believe in leverage. That means that one builds on the other. I think of research and undergraduate education at Vanderbilt propelling each other to higher levels. We have the kind of environment for our undergraduate students that puts them in contact with people who are at the forefront of their fields and at the forefront of intellectual pursuits and that is an enormous benefit to undergraduate students, a benefit they wouldn't have at an undergraduate four-year liberal arts college. At the same time, we're providing the faculty with contact with undergraduate students so that their research is connected to undergraduate teaching.

Q: What three words would you use to describe the College of Arts and Science?

A:Civility, challenge, expectations. We have an expectation of ourselves as a faculty, of our students and of our staff, that we can and will do things better. We have the expectation that we're going to be the kind of place in which you feel an enormous amount of pride and also love -- the kind of place where all of us, faculty and students, learn, grow intellectually, challenge our limits and advance ourselves and our goals.

Q: Could you give me an example of what you mean by civility?

A:Last year, a search committee wanted me to appoint a certain faculty member, which I declined to do. Components of the student body and of the faculty made it quite clear to me how they felt. But look at the manner in which they did it. Nobody came and took over my office. No one shouted. But they clearly expressed in a thoughtful manner that they felt that they had not been heard by me. In an equally civil way, I tried to explain to them the reasons behind my decision. At many other universities, there would have been shouting matches, yelling. Here we had a civil dialogue.

Q: What are your plans for the future?

A:My wife, Trudi, and I haven't made any plans, except this summer we're going to go to her family's little summer cabin up in the Catskill Mountains in New York. That's as far as we have planned. We've always been in a hurry all these years. My guess is that somehow I will be forced not to be in a hurry. It will be a new experience. I've been an administrator now for 20 years. One lives vicariously through the successes of the students and the faculty. It is very appealing to be able to go back and again do personal, idiosyncratic work, which is studying and learning. There are a lot of things that I've always wanted to do of an intellectual nature, but I've had to postpone attempting them. Now's the time to try to do them.

This interview first appeared in the spring 2000 issue of A&S Cornerstone, published by the Office of Alumni Publications.

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