One and a half years since joining The New School in April 2020, President Dwight McBride has led the university throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a tumultuous time for the university characterized by the same uncertainty, fear and financial difficulty across higher education in the U.S. 

As The New School community has arrived back on campus—including many students here for the first time—a host of urgent questions remain about the implementation of COVID protocols this semester. 

Speaking with President McBride in his office located in the 12th street Lang building, The New School Free Press entertained a range of issues: the university’s response to COVID, its financial health, and how he and his leadership team intend to support students who have come to New York City for in-person classes. We also discussed the way forward: McBride’s vision for the future of The New School. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. It was conducted in person on October 14, 2021, by Co-Managing Editors, Alexandra Nava-Baltimore and Christian Richey, with university spokesperson Amy Malsin present. Unfortunately, despite a prior agreement, the NSFP was told that President McBride did not have time to sit for a photograph. 

What is it like being in person as president for the first time? 

This is my 18th month now as president. So I arrived in New York City, just as the city was closing down. I think I got here at 6 p.m., one evening, and at 8 p.m., the restaurants closed that same night. So my arrival could not have been less ceremonious than it was. I had been to the city several times during the transition months leading up to that, back and forth between Atlanta at the time and, and New York, for visits to meet with the officers of the university, some of the faculty, the trustees, etc. Just getting to know the place, getting to know its issues, getting to know the possibilities. And so I was able to spend some time on the campus when things were normal.

There were a lot of concerns that people also brought with them about health and safety. And I think we’ve done a lot to really pay attention to that early on. We started that work probably late last spring, even really beginning to think about all the things that needed to happen for us to safely return to campus. People are doing what they need to do, there’s been a real sense of communal responsibility for The New School. 

Can you tell us about your first year as president? Starting during the pandemic, and then moving online? What was that like?

In all honesty, it was a little scary and overwhelming. When you imagine what it might be like to become a university president, this was not at all what I think anyone imagines. I’ve even talked to a lot of [college and university] presidents this past year, who have been doing this for a much longer time. And many of them just expressed a lot of concern. It was scary. I mean, just like it was for, I think, many of you, it was unnerving. We didn’t have a lot of information about this virus at the time. We didn’t really know what was happening. And so everyone started to feel helpless and powerless. But when you’re entering a role like this, part of your job is also to be the person that has to be clear-headed, right? You have to be the person who is being as rational as you can be with the facts and information that you have. How do we protect people? How do we keep them safe? How do we keep the educational mission moving forward? So that was the job in those early days. It wasn’t the job I thought I was going to be doing in those first three months. I thought I’d be out, meeting with students, meeting faculty, going to different schools and going to performances and getting to know the place. And none of that was possible. 

So that was strange, coming to a new university as a leader where you are reduced to having to meet everyone online. There was no playbook for that at all. I’d be lying if I said it was not one of the hardest years of my life too, and like everyone else, there was a certain amount of trauma about this experience that I also carry. I have a lot of sympathy, even as we’ve returned to campus and [I see] the excitement that people have and people who are still very nervous. I completely get that, because it’s hard to flip a switch from where we’ve been for a year and a half, to being back in a fully populated campus. Even with all the protocols, there’s some trauma that we’re all processing and working through. 

Since being back in person, have you had a chance to visit a classroom of students, or build a strong connection with any of the faculty?

So far, we’ve been really focused on just getting the campus open, and the protocols holding. In this first part of the academic year I’m looking forward to more of those kinds of opportunities as this semester goes on. I had some of those in the first year, but all of them on Zoom. At the end of semesters, I was able to go and see final projects. I went to a class where students were doing final monologues and I was able to get to a Parsons class, as well, where students were showing their final designs. It was great to be able to sample some of that, even online in Zoom. But I’m really excited to be able to do some of that closer to the end of this semester. 

How do you feel about the school’s response to COVID thus far? 

We’re doing really well. The work with the public health consultant was important. The people who did the HVAC work and looked at our ventilation and filtration, all of that was important. The masking protocols and our policies around, all of that’s important. But I think the really important thing is that this community responded well to the call to take care of each other at this moment. People are getting tested. People are doing it on the timetables that we need them to do it. People are wearing masks. I’ve not been in any indoor facility where I’ve seen people flagrantly, just flouting the mask policy. So I’m proud of what we’ve done. I’m proud of the work that everyone’s done to really lean in. 99% of our faculty and staff [are vaccinated along with  97%] of our students. That number was a little lower only because some of our international students couldn’t start their vaccines until they got here. 

But it’s been incredible. I am proud of this community. I’m proud of the sense that people have of our need and desire to take care of one another and to do our part. And that’s what I see when I’m walking around campus. And in fact, our numbers, I think compare more favorably than even some of our peer institutions in the area that I’ve been talking to, because we compare notes regularly as well (Note: At the time of writing, the New School’s public dashboard lists a 0.19% positivity rate among all community members, NYU’s lists 0.76%, Fordham’s 0.45%, Columbia’s 0.68%, Barnard’s 0.12% and SUNY’s 0.65%). 

The university’s finances and financial health grew significantly worse due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There were several lay-offs and furloughs made to faculty and staff. Can you tell us a bit about that difficult period from your perspective, and how the university has recovered financially since then?

No new president or leader wants to walk into the kind of situation that I walked into. From a personal perspective, it was probably the hardest part about the job other than the isolation of being alone in an apartment, in a new city where you’re leading a new institution and not meeting anyone in person. The hardest thing was that you were also doing it at a time of financial pressure and crisis for the institution.

 And I’ll go further to say that I, personally, gained weight during that time. I developed a few medical issues that I did not arrive here with, and I’ve never had before. So when I say that we all have trauma and carry trauma around this, I recognize that I know I did, I know others have. Both mental health, but also physical health, loss [and] isolation. 

We did make some hard choices, things that were gut-wrenching for me, on a personal level. gut-wrenching for, I know, a lot of people in this community. But I am glad that we can stand here today and say that the university is on solid footing today as a result of some of those choices that we made. We’re still a place that has to be vigilant about our finances, this isn’t a wealthy institution (Note: The New School’s public financial statement for 2020 notes the school had $566 million in net assets at the end of 2020. Barnard reported it had $518 million in 2020, while Columbia had $16 billion and NYU reports had $9 billion). 

It’s an institution that has great ambitions. And in terms of meeting those ambitions, it’s going to take both continuing to be vigilant about how we manage our finances [and] it’s also going to take real commitment to increase our philanthropy and philanthropic support. We’ve really got to lean into creating new revenue streams for the university. And that means really investing in professional education, executive education, continuing education opportunities [and] certificate programs in areas that help to benefit the great industries that drive the city and this economy. 

We want to be a part of the solution of making accessible the great things that our students… come here to The New School [for]. That has to be a part of our financial future in such a way that is so important in order for us to contain costs for us to be able to provide a greater sense of financial aid for students, and support. We don’t want this to be a place or become a place where only those who are wealthy can afford to be here. And so far we have a great track record in that regard (Note: According to 2017 data from The New York Times 46% of all New School students come from the top 20% of median family income while 10% of students come from the bottom 20%). We want to make sure we can continue to do that. And while the university puts up a lot of resources for students in the form of financial aid, we really need more.

The Board of Trustees had to draw down the endowment. Can you talk about what that was used for?

The Board gave us the option of being able to draw down the endowment up to a certain amount. And off the top of my head I don’t remember the amounts. But what the money was actually utilized for was one, to make up the difference between the revenues that we lost in terms of Dining Services, the revenues that we lost in terms of housing and revenues that were lost in terms of tuition dollars because we had a number of students who deferred, who decided not to come for different reasons. 

So our numbers were lower, about 10%, lower than they were normally, last year. So all of those are factors. And again, you add to that the costs that come along with increasing financial aid, which we did last year for students. We had enhanced financial aid. We also did not increase tuition for a year (Note: While initially the university announced plans to raise tuition for the 2020-2021 school year in late March of 2020 that decision was reversed in early April of the same year. For the 2021-2022 school year tuition increased 2.5% for Parsons, Lang, and CoPA students). So that money that was budgeted for that increase also didn’t come. So we had to fill that gap as well. But again, we thought those were all the right things to do in a pandemic. You don’t want to pass that on to students and families who are already hard strapped in a hard time. So all of that along with the actual materials that it takes to respond to COVID; providing masks, providing tests for free, new cleaning services that we needed for the making centers and other spaces that we did have open last year [as] those have to be cleaned in a different way, to a higher standard. Services had to be provided to do that [and] we’re still paying for those services. 

Again, it’s about keeping the community safe. That’s why free masks are available everywhere. And the testing that we’re doing bi-weekly for those of us who are vaccinated — and for those few who are not, they’re having to test even more regularly — all of those tests are being provided for free. All of that costs a lot of money as well for a campus of 15,000 people, right? So those are the variety of things that had to be addressed last year.

When a student tests positive for COVID-19 how does The New School support them academically? There has been confusion across the student body about the hybrid option. Some professors are offering it and others are not. So if a student does contract COVID how are they supported? 

We really had a lot of conversations about [this] with the faculty. One of the things that was really important to us is that faculty all agree that we have to be willing to provide leniency and support for students who may have either been exposed to COVID or may have COVID. If a test result hadn’t shown up yet, we needed to be lenient and provide a lot of understanding for students who might miss a class. We knew that was going to be important because we also knew none of this is going to work perfectly. 

But onto the hybrid piece, I’m not the best person to address that issue. I’m aware of it… but they’re going to be the people that are closest to that as the chief academic officer. 

Talking to students, we’ve heard that they feel that Student Health Services is lacking and that there are not enough therapists in that area. How do you look to support students with those needs? 

I’ll urge you to talk with the Provost, [Renee White] or the interim Vice Provost for Student Success [Xenia Markowitt]. They’re just closer to the management of those issues than I am and it really is their responsibility. So I don’t want to speak out of turn about things I don’t know, well, either. In the conversations I’m having with the provost, Student Health Services, and mental health services, [they are] especially critically important to us at the university. It’s been important, and it’s been a problem and an issue at every university I’ve worked at. No one has figured this out in a way that fully meets every need on campus. We’ve got to figure out the best strategy forward, and again, that’ll be the job of the provost and the vice president — vice provost for student success and engagement to do that work. But we will definitely need to make sure we’re taking advantage not only of the people we have here on campus but the services that can also augment those needs of students. We’re here in the center of Manhattan, where there is world-class health care, and world-class mental healthcare as well. I haven’t seen any place that has yet to meet the full need of a community with just the services that we will be able to offer on-campus alone. 

It was recently announced that Cornel West and Judith Butler had been named the presidential visiting scholars. Did you feel that it was appropriate to use funds, to pay them to teach here as opposed to rehiring staff that was cut off last year? 

We’re an academic institution, and we want to be a place that is a magnet for people like Cornel West and Judith Butler, we’ve been a magnet for people like that over the history of the institution. The goal of naming it in this way and elevating it as the presidential visiting scholars is to give it visibility beyond the university so that people know that this is a place where this kind of work is happening, this kind of level, and the caliber of scholars attracted to The New School. The kinds of issues that they value, both in us and that we value in their scholarship, that we’re able to have our students and our faculty have access to together, in community, all of that I think is incredibly important for an institution like this one. I’m excited about this start, but it’s really labeling and branding something that we’ve been doing for a long time. Judith Butler was going to be here and Cornel West was going to be here, even if we didn’t call them presidential visiting scholars. But now giving us that nomenclature helps to elevate that and allows us to be able to celebrate that more broadly and to bring attention to the institution from potential donors, funders, and potential students. It elevates us in all kinds of ways and I feel very fortunate to have them here this year.

What are your goals and plans for the future of The New School? 

It’s important to me that this be a place [where] not only students are getting a world-class education, but that they’re forming networks, and relationships that are going to serve them for the rest of their lives. Whether that’s with their fellow students, with faculty, through internships, with industry, etc. We want to make sure that we are working hand in glove to make the experience of students here as smooth, as seamless, and as service-oriented as possible. And to really create a strong sense of community. I think we’ve learned a lot this year, having half of our students who are on campus for the first time. It really has shined a light for me, certainly, and I think for others on some of the more intentional work we need to do, as we even transition students to The New School. Coming to New York City is a big deal for a lot of people. There are students who come here, from places well outside of the tri-state area that really have very little to no experience [with] what it is [like] to live in a city like New York City. [Thinking about] New York City, I consider it our geographic endowment that we’re located in this amazing place. But how do we do that in a way that really connects students to New York and connects the learning experiences that you’re having to industries in this city that you may want to work in, or even industries that you may want to explore the possibility of working in right? How we do that in a way that both benefits industry but also benefits the students. 

I also want The New School to be seen as one of the other three important universities of the city, right? When people think about Columbia and NYU, I want them in the next breath to be thinking about The New School. And I think that we’re on that journey.