Caroline Rider
Marist College
Poughkeepsie, NY
Transcribed by William Dougherty
For the Marist College archives and Special Collections





















Transcript – Caroline Rider
Interviewee:
Caroline Rider
Interviewer:
Gus Nolan and Jan Stivers
Interview Date:
4 March 2022
Location:
James Cannavino Library
Subject Headings:
Rider, Caroline


Marist College Faculty


Marist College School of Management


Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.)


Marist College History
Summary:
Caroline Rider talks about her how early life led to first career choice, and how her
college life led to a change. She then talks about moving around the Northeast before finding
herself in Red Hook with her husband and taking a job as a Professor at Marist. The discussion
continues by talking about leadership at Marist, the student body, and it ends with a discussion
about the future of Marist College.



























Jan Stivers (00:00:00):
Well, welcome Caroline.
Caroline Rider (00:00:06):
Thank you very much.
Jan Stivers (00:00:07):
For the recording, I will say that today is Friday, March 4th. I am Jan Stivers, this is speaking.
Gus Nolan (00:00:17):
A lot of names you Gus Nolan a retired professor, heritage professor, something else in there too,
you know, but now they pay me to stay home.
Jan Stivers (00:00:28):
Class of 52. And we're interviewing a professor Caroline Rider for the Marist College Oral
History Project. So the purpose of the project is to capture the experiences of members of the
Marist community who played an active role in the development of this wonderful institution.
And we're grateful to all that you did that brought you to this place of having, being able to make
this contribution to the college and then of course, to the archives. So the way the interview will
progress is that Gus will open with some questions about your own personal background. I'll
move into a set of questions about your career and how it developed over time. And Gus will
close with questions about your perceptions and perspectives on the college over the time that
you've been here.
Caroline Rider (00:01:21):
Sure. Sounds good.
Gus Nolan (00:01:22):
So let's start from the beginning. We'll probably never have another Caroline Rider here, but just
for history's sake can you please give a few things about your background? Where were you born
into your family, not when but where you were, growing up, early years. As you talk, I'll maybe
interrupting about grade school, etcetera, but kind of a picture of your early years, how would
you describe?
Caroline Rider (00:01:53):
Sure. Well, I was born in the Northern Duchess Hospital in Rhinebeck before they had a
maternity ward. So I won't tell you exactly when that was, but you can tell it was a while ago and
I grew up on River Road, north of Rhinebeck and I went to Rhinebeck schools and, but I actually
spent my senior year of high school in Norway as an AFS exchange student. And that was, that
was definitely a life experience that I think is influential and have treasured. And I keep my
contacts there. Then I, oh, while I was in high school, I was, I really was enthusiastic about
science and my father helped me do science projects. Those were the days of science fairs. You
know, we were trying to catch up with the Russians because they had put Sputnik up there.


Gus Nolan (00:02:48):
Yes.
Caroline Rider (00:02:49):
We needed to do something. And so I was in science fairs and one year I did a project on
Mendelian ratios, genetic ratios using fruit flies. And that led to working in George Hooper's lab
in the basement of Donnelly one summer.
Jan Stivers (00:03:12):
When you were a high school student?
Caroline Rider (00:03:13):
When I was a high school student.
Jan Stivers (00:03:14):
Wow. Wow.
Caroline Rider (00:03:15):
Because we were doing a chromatography of fruit fly pigments, eye pigments. I was like, I it was
sort of a funny big circle later, you know? Because he was a great teacher.
Gus Nolan (00:03:27):
Say something about your father that he was supervising this.
Jan Stivers (00:03:31):
Oh, right. So my father grew up in Danbury, Connecticut and went to MIT, but he was always a
tinkerer. He was always interested in science. He went, he and my mother got married and
moved to Poughkeepsie and then to Rhinebeck. He worked for Central Hudson all his life. First
as an engineer and then actually is the head of their environmental efforts. And so he actually
invented laboratory machinery for my mother's brother who was a biology teacher and researcher
at Smith College. And so he was, he was a tinkerer. He really was. And so we did all kinds of
science projects, and of course, looking back, I realized we, I was working without a hood in our
basement with all kinds of solvents that, you know, probably…
Gus Nolan (00:04:32):
Has that affected you ?
Caroline Rider (00:04:34):
Seems to be okay. So far.
Gus Nolan (00:04:37):
But you know, a young woman growing up, were you interested in song and dance, the theater,
any of that or all of it?


Caroline Rider (00:04:46):
Oh, yes. Well, so for reasons, which would take a little time to explain my mother enrolled me in
the Bard nursery school when I was very little and in, because they had a modern dance program
for little kids. So I got to be an autumn leaf. Finally I had to do summersaults on the run to be
like a leaf, skittering before the wind. Except it wasn't too good because they had three different,
four different colors of little cotton leotards before there was any elastic in any clothing, they had
red, they had green, they had yellow and they had brown. I got one of the brown ones, but hey,
you know, it was fun being a leaf. So, so there was that. And then my grandmother was actually,
she had gotten a Master's Degree in music education from NYU in the thirties, maybe forties.
She was there for a choir and voice, and maybe even orchestra professor at Danbury State
Teachers College, which is now Western Connecticut, but she loved music. And so she took us
to Tanglewood. My father played jazz trombone. And so we had wonderful music all the time in
the house. My parents played records all the time.
Gus Nolan (00:06:22):
I wish this was on video. Just to see you do demonstrations. It's just so beautiful. You already
answered the question, but I'll ask it anyway. How come Smith College after high school?
Caroline Rider (00:06:35):
Oh, well, first of all, my uncle taught there so I was familiar with it because we used to, my, I
was very close to my cousin who was his eldest daughter. She's a year older than I am. So we
spent a lot of time there and on the campus. And since I was interested in science, anyway, he
said, well, you should apply. You know, we have a great science department, which is true, was
true and is true. And so, because I was in Norway for my senior year, I figured, well, I better
apply someplace early decision because there was no way I was gonna be able to do all that
paperwork in December and January and whatever. So I applied early decision and they let me
in.
Gus Nolan (00:07:19):
Oh, very good.
Caroline Rider (00:07:20):
And I loved it. It was a great place to go to school, yeah.
Gus Nolan (00:07:25):
How big were the classes there?
Caroline Rider (00:07:27):
Oh, well my biggest class was general chemistry freshman year. That must have been about 50
people in an amphitheater. All my other classes were under 20.
Gus Nolan (00:07:40):
Oh, okay. Really small kind of individual.


Jan Stivers (00:07:44):
Yeah. Good labs. You know, when you have to prepare a lab for like 30 people, there's only so
much you can do, but when you get to prepare a lab for like 10 people, you can do a lot more.
Gus Nolan (00:07:56):
I think I want to change a little bit, there's a change now in what you might be looking at, you're
into chemistry and you are into song and dances and where and so on and suddenly.
Caroline Rider (00:08:15):
Oh, you are a perceptive devil Gus Nolan! Because it was actually kind of an interesting story, of
how that happened. I was really, really, and am still, I just love science, particularly, the
chemistry of biology and I know a lot about antibodies and T cells and B cells now, for example.
But at the same time, the politics of getting money to do research were becoming very, very,
very difficult. Richard Nixon was cutting back on basic research. He thought that, you know
research, corporations could do it. And so women who had gone before me and were getting
PhDs in biology and chemistry and stuff said, well, look forward to being somebody's lab
assistant for a long time, before you ever get a chance to be, to have your own projects and have
your own grants and stuff like that. And since my strength was not actually in the bench work,
my strength was in the results analysis and envisioning what the best next step of research ought
to be. I thought I'll be a total failure. I'll just be a total failure. And I knew I didn't wanna go to
medical school. So I thought now I'm in kind of a pickle and then Smith College has a house
system or did at the time, I guess they still do. But our houses were like 8 people with our own
kitchen in our own dining room and our own living room. And so Sally Katzenbach, who was
the daughter of Nicholas Katzenbach, came to visit one time and she had a circle of people
sitting around in Morris's house. And she said, you know, being a lawyer is a lot of fun. She said,
you know, you get to present things to people and you get to think problems out and you get to
try to convince people of things. And I thought, well, that could be good. So I thought, well, you
know, I know I really, I'm not gonna make it in the world of biological research for the
foreseeable future. I'm just not the bench work type. You know? So I applied to law school and
oh, I applied to Harvard Law School. I got a really good LSAT score. They've changed all the
scales, but at the time it was really good. And I went to interviews, I went to an interview at
Harvard. They said, oh, well, we'd like to interview you. Okay, fine. So I go there and the person
who interviews me says, this is 19, the summer of the fall of 1970, because I graduated in 71, fall
of 1970 interviewer says, well, you know, we only accept 10% of the class, female.
Jan Stivers (00:11:30):
Oh my Lord.
Caroline Rider (00:11:31):
He said, so being better than 90% of the applicants, isn't good enough. You've got to be better
than almost all the women applicants. I said, oh, I see. Was that blatant? You know? Wow. The
next year seventy, not that year. the next year 72, they made the civil rights act applicable to
institutions of higher education. But it wasn't at the time that, so I applied to Columbia and NYU
and I got the waiting list at Columbia and I got into NYU. So I went and it was really a lot of
fun.


Gus Nolan (00:12:11):
Did you travel from here or did you live in New York?
Jan Stivers (00:12:14):
No. I lived in New York. Well, at first they said I could stay in the dorm and then about a month
before they said, oh, sorry, we don't have any dorm for you. I said, oh my God. So I called up my
uncle. He was my, I called him my guardian uncle angel because he saved me and my kids on a
number of occasions. And he had just remarried, his first wife died of cancer. He had just
remarried and she wanted to live in her apartment. And so he had an empty apartment, a co-op
on West End Avenue. So he said, well, tell you what, you pay the maintenance on the co-op and
you can stay there
Jan Stivers (00:12:56):
West End Avenue, which street?
Caroline Rider (00:12:58):
72nd street.
Jan Stivers (00:12:59):
Oh my gosh. Right near Lincoln Center. Oh how nice.
Jan Stivers (00:13:03):
That's right. So I felt, wow. You know, that's wonderful. So we had, I had a Smith classmate as a
roommate and we also had one of my uncle's new wife's Hungarian friends as our apartment
mate, which was a little weird. It was okay. And so I took the subway back and forth every day,
which was fun.
Gus Nolan (00:13:31):
Very good. Then you wanna say something about local life here.
Jan Stivers (00:13:36):
So you graduated from NYU, you came back to Red Hook? What happened?
Caroline Rider (00:13:41):
No, I graduated from NYU, well actually I got married while I was in law school. I met my
husband, my first year of law school. We got married. So that was fall of 71. We got married in
August of 72. He was working for New York's Legal Aid Society but it was very, very
discouraging. He was up in the criminal courts in the Bronx and the enormity of the problems
were just overwhelming for a nice Jewish boy from Rochester. So he said, oh, you gotta get me
out of here. So, because he knew I needed to finish law school. So we moved to Maine. But the
Dean of the Maine, the Dean of the NYU School of Law had just become the Dean of the Maine
School of Law. So they arranged it so that I could continue to get credit and get my degree from
NYU, but take the rest of my classes in Maine.


Jan Stivers (00:14:42):
Oh wow. Wow.
Caroline Rider (00:14:43):
So we lived in Maine for two years and I had, I passed the Maine bar there and I had my first
legal job there and made a lot of good, good friends. But then it was like, oh, well now what? So
I worked for an insurance company and being in the corporate law setting, wasn't all that
attractive. So we thought, well, where could we have our own practice? And I said, well, you
know, let's be sensible, either it's gotta be someplace where you know, some people or it's gotta
be someplace where I know some people. So he said, well, we're not going to where I grew up.
Jan Stivers (00:15:15):
In Rochester.
Caroline Rider (00:15:18):
So he said, that leaves us going to where you grew up. So then we came to Red Hook that was in
1975 and I lived 42 East Market Street from 1975 until October of 2020.
Jan Stivers (00:15:34):
Oh wow. That's a long time. And if I'm, if I'm remembering correctly, you had two sons when
living there.
Caroline Rider (00:15:42):
That's right. We had Josh in 78 and Zach in 82, now of course I interviewed for the position at
Marist in August and September of 1982, this big...
Jan Stivers (00:15:56):
So with one child and another almost here.
Caroline Rider (00:16:00):
Almost there and Jack Kelly said, well, could your husband take your classes while you're out? I
said yes.
Jan Stivers (00:16:09):
And he actually did work here, Paul did. He did adjunct work for a while.
Caroline Rider (00:16:13):
Adjunct and he was also visiting whenever Jack needed somebody to be a visiting, he was a full
time visiting and the students loved him, but they said, Professor Weiner should get rid of his
burgundy wide whale corduroy suit. They felt very free to comment.
Jan Stivers (00:16:33):
So you started a practice right in Red Hook, does that continue to this day?


Caroline Rider (00:16:43):
Yes, I have a very small what they call transactional practice. I don't attempt to appear in court
because the court has its own schedule and it's not compatible with a classroom schedule. But I
do, I have, I do contracts for small businesses, which is very interesting work. The life of a small
corporation of a small business is so different from what a large corporation might do. And I, and
my research is on small and medium sized enterprises. And so I still do a bit of that. A little bit
of real estate. I'll probate a will for somebody if it's, if I have to. So I have a very small practice
because the demands of being a Marist professor in an AACSB accredited school of business are
heavy.
Jan Stivers (00:17:43):
Yeah. I want to ask about that, but first I want to ask what first drew you to Marist? Why did you
apply to Marist?
Caroline Rider (00:17:50):
Oh, because I had joined the Women's Bar Association of the State of New York Dutchess
County chapter and I was trying to think of her name just today, a woman who had also gotten
into the bar in New York. Oh yeah. I forgot to say I had to take the New York State bar exam,
which I did in 75 and got admitted in 76, because I was admitted in Maine, but not in New York.
So, she had a full time teaching position here, teaching law, but she decided she wanted to go
back, and she was going to go to NYU to get a Master's in Tax. And Jack Kelly said to her, well,
okay, but you better find a replacement for yourself. So, she asked around and people said, well,
she asked around in the Women's Bar Association and they said, well, why don't you try Rider
up there? You know, she might be interested. So, she called me up and I went down and I think I
watched her a class or something. I'm pretty sure I did that. And then we talked to Jack Kelly,
and I said, well, that would be fun. And Jack didn't have any problems with it. Then I went to see
Andy Malloy and he looked at me and he said, "how do you think that you can have a practice,
have a second child and teach full time?"
Jan Stivers (00:19:20):
As a new professor.
Caroline Rider (00:19:21):
As a new professor. So, I didn't really have a very good answer for that. So, what I said was,
well, what I can tell you is that I can do things that some other people can't do. That's number
one. And number two, a lot of my family are teachers. All of my uncles for example, have been
professors. So, all of them, 1, 2, 3, 4 of 'em. And so, I think I can do it which was no answer at
all.
Jan Stivers (00:19:56):
This is a maybe a digression, but it does tell us something about Andy who had four sons under
five years of age, right. Four sons in five years. But, he wrote into my contract that I could have a
maternity leave because we were expecting to adopt a second child. Kevin wasn't even applied
for yet. And when it was time and I asked for my leave, they said, no, no, no, we don't do that.
We don't Marist doesn't do that. And I went back and I had the letter from Andy. He put it in


Marist will look favorably upon your request for a leave when a child comes. So, it's something
where an administrator's values can really change the shape of the institution.
Caroline Rider (00:20:47):
Absolutely. That's clearly true.
Jan Stivers (00:20:50):
So, you were hired to teach Business Law?
Caroline Rider (00:20:53):
Mm-hmm yeah. You know, the old four, four load and so I did that and that was fine until they
tried to have us teach over in Western Printing, turned out the toxic chemicals over there were
more than my system could take.
Jan Stivers (00:21:08):
Really? Wow. I taught over there. So, what were your expectations for life at Marist like, and
were they met?
Caroline Rider (00:21:18):
I didn't have a lot of expectations. I really had no idea. I knew that it would probably be fun
because I, you know, right in the beginning, I mean, Marist students are nice people, you know,
and so, you know, I found that if I could make them laugh, we all had a good time. And then
maybe, maybe they would study.
Jan Stivers (00:21:42):
Possibly as a favor to you. I know. It's so true. It's so true. So you said that it was a four, four
load. Yeah. And that was, of course before you were teaching grad classes also, right. Tell us
how your role has changed over time.
Caroline Rider (00:22:00):
Well, of course, after a while, Marc van der Heyden, you know, wanted us to start research. And
Jack Kelly sort of went along with it because he wanted to get us AACSB accredited, because he
thought that maybe Dennis would look more favorably upon requests for full-time lines. If
AACSB said, you got to maintain your ratios. Which turned out to be true. And so, we had to do
that. There was, it was a little bumpy there for a while.
Jan Stivers (00:22:38):
Oh, it was. And especially in terms of faculty administration-relationships, it was ragged.
Caroline Rider (00:22:44):
Yeah. And I got in the middle of a, between Jack and Marc about research and stuff and also, I
had to apply to become associate twice and yes, well, but, at the same time, so we were starting
to add research and I didn't have anything against it. It's just that it made the load bigger because
we're still teaching four, four.


Jan Stivers (00:23:17):
Right.
Caroline Rider (00:23:18):
And so, you know, and then there started to be committees and all that sort of stuff. I was one of
the ones who helped put together the very first iteration of the MBA program and have enjoyed
teaching in it ever since. I'm about to start a round two course, but we have made in order to keep
up with the competition, we have made our MBA courses shorter and shorter promising New
York State that we wouldn't decrease what we were accomplishing.
Gus Nolan (00:23:53):
Oh yeah. Yeah. The telescope it in.
Jan Stivers (00:23:56):
And promising students, it was all going to be doable.
Jan Stivers (00:24:00):
Ah yeah, see. So that's a little tough. I love teaching my graduate course, because well, because
they have work experience. So when I give them something, they go, huh, I'll be able to use that
next week. Yeah. And then they come back and they say, yeah, I did. Whereas when you do the
same thing for the undergraduate business students, they go, okay. Sounds good.
Gus Nolan (00:24:29):
If you say so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Jan Stivers (00:24:34):
So, from what you're saying, I can identify some of the challenges that you faced, especially the
multiple demands. The only thing that's not increasing is the hours in the day. Any other big
challenges you want to mention?
Caroline Rider (00:24:50):
Well, I mean, at Marist, no, but at the same time, I also kind of had to become involved in school
affairs in Red Hook because they were sort of not stepping up to the challenge of meeting the
needs of the broad spectrum of students. Red Hook was doing very well with special needs
students, it was doing okay with the middle level of students it was doing, it had been doing very
well for the upper level of students in terms of kids who were already well, academically
prepared and needed a challenge to go further. And then they started to sort of slide downhill. So,
I got on the school board and then some other school board members and I kind of encouraged
everybody, look, let's do the whole spectrum and let's not do it in some snobby elitist way. That's
stupid. That's not what we intend. It's not good for anybody. And so we came up with a version
of the International Baccalaureate Program, which allowed everybody to participate, not for the
whole program, if they didn't want just for bits, which I think has worked really.
Gus Nolan (00:26:04):


How, how did you work through that though? I mean, how do you get onto the school board?
How do you get on the board? You have to run for it. So, you need friends. You need a whole
political background. And so, you need influence, and you need to be able to have, you were
busy, you were teaching here, you wanted up like that. So, what's that step, how were you able to
multitask?
Caroline Rider (00:26:33):
A lot of multitasking. Well, the first thing is that, that I had actually been what we now call a
community organizer since I was a kid. My mother was very, very active in the democratic party,
in Northern Dutchess. And there wasn't much of a democratic party in Northern Dutchess when
they started, but she and a group of friends. So, I went out and I campaigned for Joe Reznick,
and I did three by five cards and all this sort of stuff. And later I helped her. She bought a new,
she bought the Gazette advertiser. And so, I helped her on that. But so, I knew a whole lot about
how you present something to a group of people, politically speaking. I knew how you speak to
newspapers, what you, when you have something, you would like them to remember and print
you speak one way, when you have something that you're pretty sure they'll mangle if they try to
tackle it, you speak a different way. And so, I had, I encouraged some friends of mine to also run
for the school board. And so by the time, few years had gone by, we had, it was a small board.
So, we had four out five people who were willing to be, you know, proactive.
Gus Nolan (00:27:52):
Yeah, yeah. Community organizer, a man became president of this country who seemed to have
that kind.
Jan Stivers (00:28:00):
With fewer years, a lawyer, a Harvard lawyer. So, if I were you, I would certainly count as one
of my successes bringing IB to Red Hook. Being elected and serving as president of the Red
Hook board. What other successes would you identify as you look back on your career?
Caroline Rider (00:28:23):
Well, I was also one of the early members of Hudson River Heritage. I don't know if you've ever
heard of that, but it's an organization that has done a lot of work in the historic architecture field
in the communities, along the east bank of the Hudson from about yeah, Staatsburg to the
Columbia County border. And so I, and some other people were, I was recruited to be on the
board and then I, and some other people on the board really helped do the legwork and the
paperwork for the National Heritage Area designation, that they got. And then Wendy Aldrich
asked me, would I help him, would I help him help Daisy Suckley.
Jan Stivers (00:29:09):
Oh wow, Daisy Suckley.
Caroline Rider (00:29:12):
To create a not-for-profit organization that would allow her to put her house into it. So, it could
become a house museum. So, I did the incorporation.


Jan Stivers (00:29:22):
Wow. That's the place I love to bring guests.
Caroline Rider (00:29:25):
Yeah. Me too.
Jan Stivers (00:29:26):
Yeah. Wow. That's a very significant accomplishment. Yeah. Any disappointments?
Jan Stivers (00:29:35):
Oh, I'm sure. I mean, I mean, and by nature, a fairly optimistic person.
Gus Nolan (00:29:45):
Yeah. Let's not go there yet.
Caroline Rider (00:29:47):
Okay.
Gus Nolan (00:29:48):
Let's go down another road here. Let's talk about Marist itself. We work for Marist that's what
we're doing this archive for. Tell us your view of Marist when you came here and then the
process of being here and where is it now? You know, on financial levels? I know I've talked
same question to other people. They said, when they first came here, there were one or two
students had cars and it looked like they had been banged up. Now students have cars, they can't
afford, you know, so there's been a great cosmic shift here almost, it seems, I'm not sure if that's
really true, but where do you see this?
Caroline Rider (00:30:37):
Well, as I was walking over, I realized that there were a couple of things I wanted to make sure I
said. And one of those was that one of the reasons, see, my first year's appointment was a
visiting. And so it wasn't at all sure that A, they would want me back because maybe the lady
would come back, although she decided not to. And B, I wasn't sure I would want to come back
because I had a litigation practice going, which was hard. But you know, I really, really, really
liked the people here. I liked. I like, I'm not Catholic. I like the Marist Brothers. I like the
communitarian spirit. I like the lack of arrogance. I really, you know, so among my sort of best
early friends at Marist were people like Joe Belanger and Brother Cornelius and Lou Zuccarello
and Richard LaPietra and you know, they, because so smart. And so, so keeping their focus on
the welfare of the whole, which is a big thing with me and I don't know, I really liked them.
Gus Nolan (00:32:00):
Yeah.
Caroline Rider (00:32:02):


So, so I wanted to be sure I said that.
Gus Nolan (00:32:07):
I'm glad you said that because I agree with you. I mean, that's part of my team. I came here with
those banners, you know, and I'm not sure there're still flying as high as I would like them to be.
But, so many things have changed and that's I think one aspect of it.
Jan Stivers (00:32:28):
One of the things that with all the men that you mentioned, they were all willing to do whatever
the college needed. So Lou would move into academic vice president. People taught different
things. Right. Richard took on, faculty leadership roles and they did whatever the institution
needed. That's a beautiful thing. I think there's less of that today.
Caroline Rider (00:32:54):
Of course, there is. course there is.
Jan Stivers (00:32:55):
But there's some, but there's some, you know.
Caroline Rider (00:32:57):
We had to grow, you know, you see some of the very small schools now that are actually going
under. Because they weren't able to grow enough to be able to stay afloat. So, I think we kind of
had to grow. I mean, some people want to grow because they, because they want to, but I think
also we kind of had to. And so, whenever you, I mean, part of my research is the dynamics of
small organizations versus the dynamic of large organizations. And you know, I'm a small
organization person. You know, some people do really well in great big honeycombs, and you
scramble from one handhold to the next and you, you know, carve things up and take charge and
da, da, da, da, fine. I guess somebody's got to do that. It's really not my thing. And so, you see a
certain amount of that happening as Marist has grown larger and more bureaucratic and people
don't know each other as well. And in the effort to have more scholarly scholar teachers, we have
attracted and hired a whole lot of people who aren't as interested in teaching.
Jan Stivers (00:34:20):
Right, and whose contracts do not call for them to be on campus very much.
Caroline Rider (00:34:24):
Right. You know? So it's like, Ugh???
Gus Nolan (00:34:29):
Pretty much in transition. This is kind of a standing point to where they go next.
Jan Stivers (00:34:33):
Well, you know, I mean I had last semester, I was talking about, okay, so on the final exam,
we've done all these things for your paper, your project, your research project. So, I'm not going


to put those on the final exam because I know what you know about those. So, these are going to
be, this is going to be the draft of things that will be on the final exam. And one young lady
piped up and she said, “will it be true false or multiple choice?” I thought to myself, that means
she's a senior. She has other professors who are giving her final exams.
Jan Stivers (00:35:10):
Scantron, scantron...
Caroline Rider (00:35:12):
Oh my God.
Gus Nolan (00:35:14):
The machine can't be correct it...
Caroline Rider (00:35:15):
Yeah. So I, well, you know what, ilearn kind of encourages that they, ilearn lets you make up
supposedly short answer questions and then it will scan the questions for the keywords that you
wanted, or you can use multiple choice, or you can use true/false. I just don't think that's
university level learning,
Jan Stivers (00:35:34):
Not at Marist, especially. So, part we're talking here about, a shift in priorities where, a greater
emphasis on scholarship happened and in the school of management, it seems to me more than
some other schools, you've had a lot of change at the top. A lot of…
Caroline Rider (00:35:58):
Oh yeah.
Jan Stivers (00:36:00):
Do you want to talk to us about that?
Caroline Rider (00:36:01):
Oh do I, I don't know.
Jan Stivers (00:36:04):
Well, how about just the impact that it had on you?
Caroline Rider (00:36:07):
Yeah. We've had a lot of deans and interim deans and acting deans and I don't know, it has not
been a good thing. It has not been a good thing. Gordon Badavick was a very good Dean. We
haven't had a very good Dean since then.
Jan Stivers (00:36:24):


Wow.
Caroline Rider (00:36:25):
I think Rob Walsh could have been a good Dean, but our team kept undercutting him. It was like,
I was there one day when our team said something, it was Rob and somebody else and our team
and I were standing in what used to be the Dyson conference room. It's like, our team said
something and Rob's eyes got as big saucers. And I saw that. And so later I asked him, he said,
he told me in writing the exact opposite of that.
Jan Stivers (00:36:57):
Yeah.
Caroline Rider (00:36:59):
And so Rob, just after that, Rob just got out of here as fast as he possibly could. Yeah. And so
we just haven't had, we haven't had good deans of the school of management since then. We
have a search on now. James has been pretty good. I have to say, yeah, James Snyder is good in
the sense that he actually, is not afraid of receiving input from people. He's not petrified of that.
The way most of them are. He's interested in knowing what people think, which is nice. He tries,
but he's been interim for two years now and I gather he doesn't want to do that anymore. So I
don't know.
Jan Stivers (00:37:44):
What, why certainly management's not his field.
Caroline Rider (00:37:46):
And management's not his field. Right. I'm not so sure that matters myself. Right,
Jan Stivers (00:37:52):
Right.
Caroline Rider (00:37:53):
Um, maybe it does
Jan Stivers (00:37:54):
Maybe a CSB?
Caroline Rider (00:37:56):
Yeah, yeah. Right.
Jan Stivers (00:37:59):
Before I let you go, I want to ask about your own leadership. You certainly were a faculty leader
during all of my years here as a faculty member. And I was talking with Della Sue today and I
was telling her that I was pretty sure you had won the Kilgariff award, but I couldn't find it. I


couldn't find a record of it on the website. And she said, no, I think it wasn't the Kilgariff award,
I think it was the trustees award for excellence in teaching.
Caroline Rider (00:38:33):
It was both.
Jan Stivers (00:38:34):
That's what we concluded. It was both. So, I would like to hear you talk about those awards, the
impact that they had on you.
Caroline Rider (00:38:43):
I mean, I was on a lot of committees
Caroline Rider (00:38:48):
Oh, I was on the FEC when…
Jan Stivers (00:38:51):
FEC, Bill Olson.
Caroline Rider (00:38:51):
When Bill Olson was struggling, there was a mighty struggle. Yeah. I was on the FEC when Bill
Olson was there and I was on the FEC another time and I was on, AAC. I was chair of the AAC
for a while. I actually thought, I actually thought I did some useful things when I was chair of the
AAC in terms of helping the procedure get a little better. And in terms of encouraging faculty
members to use their heads, use their brains and not just wait for Mark to tell them what to do.
You know, you can't complain about never being asked for anything. If you just sit there and say
nothing to do nothing too. You know, so,
Jan Stivers (00:39:39):
So a lot of faculty service that led to the Kilgariff Award
Caroline Rider (00:39:43):
Yep. And of course, Greg Kilgariff was a member of the school of management college was the
first person to do a class visitation for me. Which I thought was cool. And so I appreciated being
recognized for the amount of time that it takes to be good in a faculty leadership position,
because it requires a lot of communication. You really have to talk to people, you have to talk to
a lot of people. So we instituted the practice of going around from school to school, with
proposals, you know, each member of the AAC would go to a couple of them, not just their own,
but a couple of them > and, and then bring back the input and then we'd sit and we'd think, and
we'd talk about it. And it, I thought it worked pretty well. I mean, we changed from a, whatever
that structure had been. We, we acquired departments, if you recall. When I came to Marist
College, we didn't have departments.
Jan Stivers (00:40:47):


We were divisions.
Caroline Rider (00:40:48):
We were divisions.
Gus Nolan (00:40:49):
Yeah, yeah,
Jan Stivers (00:40:50):
And then we became schools with departments.
Gus Nolan (00:40:55):
One of the questions that we have down here is advice you would give to new people, but I've
been thinking about it, when I think of new people, new people is somebody coming on staff, it's
not a young person. So I think it's different, a little different now we don't hire people unless they
have some credentials, you know? So it's kind of hard to think, to inspire them, to be like us. You
know to kind of pick up this, this spirit of, if you can do it, do it, you know, ask it, you know,
Linus' big thing was ask me, you can do it, but then it's your responsibility deliver it, you know.
And so, I was wondering how you would handle that now, would you talk to anybody, try to
encourage them or say here's some of the guidelines you should follow to make it here, or…
Caroline Rider (00:41:50):
Yeah, we have a process. Well, we have, we're required to have a process. You know, the
accrediting [inaudible] people require us to have a process and we've had several different ones.
And I think whenever we start out, they work really well, and people are really happy with them
and then they kind of peter out. But we've had these faculty mentor things where somebody
who's been here for a while, takes somebody who hasn't been here for a while out to lunch and
says, well, you know, this is how we do this and how are you doing? How, what are your
classes? Like, how do you feel about them? And, but the problem was that at least with the most
recent iteration of that was, things that I would say that were important for the college. We still
say to AAC, S B, we are a teaching institution, not a research institution doesn't mean we don't
do research, but we are a teaching institution. And I say that and the school says it. And so, then
when I said to my person that I was mentoring, so, you know, time spent helping them to write
better is good. Et cetera, et cetera. Our selection of interim deans have basically undercut that
because from above comes the necessity for, you know, more publications research. And you
know, all that sort of stuff. And so, you have somebody, we have a faculty member who is
commuting from Northern New Jersey admittedly. And, but she had two kids and she was very
enthusiastically involved in helping to redevelop the MBA curriculum when I was MBA
director. But then when it came to, shall we actually put this particular thing into the curriculum?
They said, no, no, no. That would be, it would be too hard. And it would take her away from,
you know, these courses.
Gus Nolan (00:44:04):
It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got my own headset.


Caroline Rider (00:44:08):
You know, so I feel as though I feel as though we’re using the MBA just to sort of turn people
through and get money. And you saw the budget presentation. That's kind of how it seemed. And
so, but even so even, so I've talked with several faculty members just recently and said, listen,
regardless Beth did say, okay, the budget is the true expression of what our priorities are, which I
agree with. And Kevin has said, you know, I want to hear your bigger thoughts and your longer-
range thoughts about what we could do and should do. And lo and behold, the next week comes
the message that, oh, well, we're supposed to take a look at our business core curriculum, but I
know that if it doesn't, if it's gonna take more time on the teaching and at the expense of people
being able to fit into their normal schedules, all the things they wanna write and publish, it
probably won't happen. But still, you know, I know what we need to do with the curriculum,
MBA and undergraduate in order to keep our students yeah. Upskilled enough to get, oh my
God, you shouldn't have got me going. But I mean, Brison, Brison and McAfee wrote a book
called the second machine age. And it's all about how vast numbers of white color, middle class,
upper middle-class jobs are going to be replaced with AI. And Rob Walsh will tell you that. And
what's his name? Batman guy, Donald, he said the same thing. Uh, and he's a really smart guy,
weird and really smart. And, so I said, you need a lot of skills. What you need now are skills and
writing is a skill. And the ability to tell what's likely not true from what might be true, but you
need to go research to verify that's a skill too.
Jan Stivers (00:46:29):
Consider other points of view, not your own.
Caroline Rider (00:46:32):
A skill, that's a skill. So, let's do stuff, oh, you even need to be able. And I have a lot of people in
my family, from my kids to my brother, to my sister say, you know, they really do need to be
able to do simple coding and Python, for example, so that they can make up their own metrics
and then take them further in their companies. Because if you are on the ground, looking at
what's happening, you shouldn't buy something off the shelf, that's gonna dump some stupid
metric on you that isn't gonna measure anything useful.
Jan Stivers (00:47:06):
Yeah. That matters to you.
Caroline Rider (00:47:08):
Right. And so, I've run that one by the school of management a couple of times, and I got
nowhere. So, it's like, are we gonna be real here? Or are we just gonna pretend? Cause if we're
just gonna pretend our graduates will stop doing as well as they've been doing, you know,
change is happening rapidly. And
Gus Nolan (00:47:32):
In the case of graduates there, what percentage of the college is graduate versus undergraduate?



Caroline Rider (00:47:39):
Well, I mean, undergraduates with a BS are going to be.
Gus Nolan (00:47:43):
Okay.
Jan Stivers (00:47:43):
We asked one of our, one person we interviewed what he considered, what factor he thought
accounted for Marist's growth and success over the last 40 years. And he said the graduates, their
reputation, the quality of the graduates, their skills.

Caroline Rider (00:47:57):
Right.

Jan Stivers (00:48:00):
You're worried about that being threatened.
Caroline Rider (00:48:06):
Yes. Because we're not moving forward. We're not being proactive. We're resting on our laurels
essentially. Yeah. And you know, the kids in the classes know that maybe their parents went or
maybe their uncle went and look at how well they've done. Of course. Oh, another thing I saw
them, another skill is to be able to put the present and the possible future into historical context
and into a broad-based environmental context, every kind of environment, political, physical, et
cetera. And then to be able to say, Hmm, looks like the wind's blowing from here. The waves are
doing this, there are rocks over there. I think I'll go that way. Instead of just saying, I'm gonna
join a big corporation, they'll tell me what to do every other Friday. They'll use a metric on me to
tell me if I'm okay and life will be grand, and they'll pay me a lot. …
Jan Stivers (00:49:04):
That's grim, that's grim.
Jan Stivers (00:49:05):
Yeah. You know, I don't think we can afford to do that if we want to keep our reputation.
Gus Nolan (00:49:10):
Yeah. The other part of that came our reputation is the Northeast doesn't have that many students
out there for us in the future. So how are we going to compete with the other students schools
that are moving, if we don't start, you know, if we don't continue, you know, thirst at least to try
to make some progress into these new advantages, you know? So, I think, that kind of moving
down to this thing, what will you suggest we do, in you yelling from your particular vantage
point, but this seems to be a need for a college or a Renaissance, to look at the new world that
we're in. Yeah. And see how things are going. Yes.


Caroline Rider (00:49:57):
Yes. I think that would be helpful.
Gus Nolan (00:49:59):
She's coming in for a moment. Alright.
Jan Stivers (00:50:02):
There we go. We're good. We're good. Did you done with your thing or do you need us to clear
out? No, no.
Gus Nolan (00:50:09):
Was just checking here is five minutes.
Jan Stivers (00:50:11):
No, no. 15.
Caroline Rider (00:50:15):
No, I think college wide would be good. It's just that it's so much more difficult now because
college wide people don't know each other. Yeah. Right. In fact, I don't even know all the people
in the school of management because under the succession of deans that we have had, there were
very few opportunities for people to get to know each other. And we did have sort of an influx of
people who could speak Chinese. And I know they talked to each other a lot, but the rest of us
just sort of, don't get to talk to each other that much, unless somebody makes an effort which
Elizabeth Purinton has done always, but she's retiring. So, I think a college-wide Renaissance
would be good. I think Kevin Weinman might be up for that. I'm not sure he knows how to do it,
but I think he's pretty firmly in favor of broader discussion rather than
Jan Stivers (00:51:16):
He does seem to be a listener.
Gus Nolan (00:51:18):
Yeah. That's from what I've heard, I've not actually met the man. I mean, I've communicated
with him and wrote him and he wrote to me, but well, in my condition, I'm not able to go to his
office and say I’m Gus Nolan, I knew all five presidents here, you know, from Paul Ambrose to,
Linus Foy, to Dennis Murray, to David Yellin and now you Kevin, welcome aboard. You know,
so, see, did you come for the graveyard?
Jan Stivers (00:51:54):
Guys don't, don't put your paper away once you want to ask you your question about glue and
your question.
Gus Nolan (00:51:59):
About, well, I she's kind of, it’s kind of repeating, she’s going to start crying again.


Jan Stivers (00:52:04):
No, I'll join her.
Caroline Rider (00:52:07):
I can cry and talk too.
Gus Nolan (00:52:10):
Very good. Well, that is the fundamental question that we have to get out there to let more and
more people know. Why did you stay here? The glue they kept you here. I mean you could have
made much more money elsewhere. You even went to law practice only. You probably would be
much better off, but you had been a mainstay here. And so, well, why did we stay now? What,
what was this attraction?
Caroline Rider (00:52:40):
Well of course in the very beginning, it was a combination of enjoying teaching, which is
something which has always been true. And having something that I was teaching something that
was also related to my professional life. So, there was connection between what I was doing in
the classroom and what I was doing outside the classroom. And it allowed me a flexible enough
schedule so that since we, since Paul and I had our own practice, we could schedule things so
that we could be with our kids, which was really important to me, but then, you know, they grew
up and I'm still here. So, then it was, well, you know, it's very rewarding to assist people in both
expanding their horizons. And in filling the individual buckets of, Ooh, I never knew about that.
And Ooh, I never knew about that. And I like knowing about new things. And so, there's that, but
it always, well, there have been times, okay, so. We had a Dean who's not here anymore. And he
was pretty terrible. He was really pretty terrible. And he created fear and isolation. He was never
mean to me personally, ever, but he created fear in isolation and it was terrible. So, we didn't
have any collegial spirit then. So, we're trying to build it back now, but except for that period.
We did have really very nice, nice people to work with people who were interested, people who
would, would take time out of their busy schedules to work on something. If it seemed like it
would be a good thing. And, so I just think, well, what more can you ask from a workplace,
right.
Gus Nolan (00:54:51):
Is there so magic or attraction, I'm looking for the word students affecting students. I mean, the
caliber of students seven as it's kind of basically the same someone who are richer than used to
be, but even that's susceptive, like more than 60% of them need help. You know, the first 10%
are in the parents of the, are in the 1% high, you know, but then from the 50% down, you know,
they need government man stage grants, they grants they're able to come here.
Caroline Rider (00:55:31):
Yeah. And both at the beginning of Marist. And again now, I mean, I've seen the quality of our
students go up and down myself. Um, and I have also always seen at a certain number of
students who really, you could tell, they were really having trouble meeting the financial
demands. They had jobs, they had parents who couldn't contribute. They had families falling
apart. They had, you know, and I I'm sort of a helper person by nature. So, so I've always been


pretty good at sort of saying, well, could you come to my office? And we could talk about the
paper that you wrote or whatever, but we would end up talking about other things that was when
I found out that some of my student athletes were literally physically hungry because the NCAA
did not allow the college to give the meal money. It's like, it's like, you can't do that. So then I
started bringing snacks to class. Right? Yeah. So, um, and then there are other students whom
I've identified saying, okay, you're really smart. You can't write your way out of a paper bag,
honest to God. If you know, if you present that as your work product, it's gonna be like, you
showed up to your best cousin's wedding in your bathing suit. It just will not do. And so let's
work on this because what you need is to be able to present your thinking in a way that will be
impressive. I go, oh, Hmm. And some of them have done really. I have one right now. He is
really making progress. He's a very smart kid. Can't write his way out of a paper bag yet, but
he's, you know, and I like that. I like, I like helping kids who, who, who, who can do a lot, but
they just need a few more tools.
Gus Nolan (00:57:23):
Yeah. Get in and recognize that they can't write is the first thing. Yes.
Caroline Rider (00:57:27):
Well, of course you can't do that. If you only give 'em multiple choice tests
Jan Stivers (00:57:31):
This is 10 years ago. I would've said, well, Caroline, you're probably not the first person that
tried to teach. 'em how to write,
Caroline Rider (00:57:41):
But…
Jan Stivers (00:57:42):
Maybe…
Caroline Rider (00:57:44):
Well, because for a while the faculty in the school management were saying, it's not my job to
teach 'em to write. They're supposed to know how to write already. And I have a lot to do. Yeah.
Which is true. Yeah. You know,
Jan Stivers (00:57:57):
As you look to the future, what do you see for Marist and what do you hope for, for Marist both?
Caroline Rider (00:58:04):
Well, I hope, I hope that people will pick their heads up off their computers long enough to see
that we really do need a new look at what we have to do for our students to get them ready for
the world, the new world. Yeah. And, um, and, um, and that we then do something about that. As
you say, though, it would take a whole lot of people working across lines, which they haven't
really worked across as much in the beginning. It was not a problem. Everybody worked across


lines. There practically weren't even any lines. You know, and now it's much, much more
difficult.
Gus Nolan (00:58:50):
Yeah. Yeah. The development of the college in terms of different houses, you know, for when
we were all in Donnelly, that was different, you know? Yeah. When people in communications
don't know the people in science don't know the people in computer science, you it's,
unfortunately I never been here and I'm guilty about myself. I've been here for 20 years and, and,
uh, there are a lot of people we going to be interviewing and I never met.
Jan Stivers (00:59:17):
Tony Campili, who we said goodbye to this week. Yeah. He once said, boy, the worst thing we
ever did was putting a coffee shop in Dyson when everybody had to go to Donnelley for their
coffee, you met everybody.
Gus Nolan (00:59:30):
Yeah.
Caroline Rider (00:59:32):
Yeah. So, you know, it's just, um, I mean, I still have friends in every school, I think, although
some of them are retiring like Richard Lewis and Denise English sort of sneaked out of here
without did. And so Claire, Keith, and I said, wait a minute, you.
Jan Stivers (00:59:48):
Know, some of that's is pandemic.
Gus Nolan (00:59:50):
Is he gone?
Jan Stivers (00:59:50):
Yeah, he left. He left. Yeah. Yeah. Oh
Caroline Rider (00:59:54):
Yeah. So that's sort of too bad, but, and the opportunities for getting to know some of the
younger ones are far and few between.
Jan Stivers (01:00:02):
Except something like, um, the accreditation middle states, right. You'll, you'll have these big
committees, they'll have representation across campus. So that's always good. Especially if you
can, um, meet with student services, athletics, there's people on your committee from other parts
of campus which is very good.
Jan Stivers (01:00:22):


I mean, Steve San has stopped me on the street the other day in [inaudible] he goes down there to
take his walk and you know, Steve and I work together a lot. And um, so there are a lot of people
it's and that was another thing about Marist. Was it the staff and the faculty and the students kind
of all knew each other. And that was a good thing.
Jan Stivers (01:00:45):
That was a good thing.
Gus Nolan (01:00:46):
Know, I'm going to ask the president, uh, Kevin to build a big swimming pool,
Jan Stivers (01:00:51):
You know.
Gus Nolan (01:00:52):
And they opened somewhere in the middle of, may, you know, and keep it all with the
September and all the families and all, you know, I mean, just to mental and, and splashing water
would kind of be…
Jan Stivers (01:01:06):
A wonderful thing.
Gus Nolan (01:01:06):
So much of it, the old stories go back to 24 days and those kinds of activities.
Caroline Rider (01:01:14):
That's right.
Gus Nolan (01:01:15):
Well, any closing comments after some many beautiful statements, I just have think about this
again and again, but, uh, uh, one of the best things that I have found taken to you, uh, it is like
your teacher, you have something to offer, you have something to say and like coming here, you
really had something to say, you know? And, uh, and I'm glad you said it as well as you did. And
I want you to, oh, what you like to say? If I have, one thing we should do.
Caroline Rider (01:01:50):
Well, just that we, we, we, we should try to redevelop the communitarian spirit because I think
it's only out of not only working together, but actually enjoying being together that you can make
the whole be more than the sum of its parts.
Jan Stivers (01:02:17):
Yeah.


Caroline Rider (01:02:18):
Yeah. And, and we need that.
Jan Stivers (01:02:20):
You know, faculty retreats.
Jan Stivers (01:02:22):
Yes. Oh, right. Remember
Jan Stivers (01:02:24):
Those Rosendale and West Point.
Caroline Rider (01:02:30):
Yeah.

Gus Nolan (01:02:31):
Mountain house.
Jan Stivers (01:02:32):
Yeah. Caroline, I want to say I'm so happy that somebody who has been teaching here, as long as
you have. Still has as much fire as much determination to do the right thing by these kids. Thank
you. It's really, it's, it's very reassuring when we talk about, you know, what do we see in the
future, the college, as long as we have people who can keep that fire going and pass it to the next
generation of faculty members.
Caroline Rider (01:03:00):
See, and that's hard.
Jan Stivers (01:03:01):
It's hard. Especially when we don't interact with work here one or two days a week. That's hard.
Caroline Rider (01:03:06):
That is hard.
Jan Stivers (01:03:08):
Yeah.
Caroline Rider (01:03:08):
Although we do have something well, but it doesn't, we have something called, um, RSS feeds in
the school of management, which is, uh, people bring in speakers. Well, we have a person's in
charge of it. And so Tom Madden was, has, did it last year, Andrew Kosenko is doing it this
year. They find really terrific people who come in, whether by zoom or in person and, and


everybody is supposed to come. And this latest one was just fantastic. Is this, um, woman, who's
half African American and half Vietnamese. And she's got a PhD in everything from
everywhere. And she, um, she says, well, you know, we all start from the wrong premise. The
premise that we start from is people prefer to be with people like themselves. And they're not so
happy about people who are different from themselves. She says, I find that to be false.
Jan Stivers (01:04:03):
Oh, really? How wonderful to hear that.
Caroline Rider (01:04:06):
Wonderful. And then she went on, you know, and it was great and it gave me, oh, I bet I, Ooh. I
have ideas for what I could do because my students do not wanna talk about this. They don't, I
had half the class drop class after I mentioned that we would throughout the class feed in some of
the things about, you know, what has happened to African Americans in our history. And also
some of the things about what we need to do about the environment. One kid got up right then
and there and walked out.
Jan Stivers (01:04:38):
And, and that's not just, fear of approaching the topic, that's my mind is already made up.
Caroline Rider (01:04:45):
Yeah.
Jan Stivers (01:04:46):
I already know how I feel about this.
Caroline Rider (01:04:50):
And I don't want to hear anything.

Jan Stivers (01:04:52)
I don't wanna hear like.

Caroline Rider (01:04:54)
So won't have to be much sneakier in future.
Jan Stivers (01:04:58):
Well, thank you. Thank you very, very much, Caroline. Really thank you for giving us this time
on a Friday afternoon,
Jan Stivers (01:05:03):
Talking to you so much fun, talking to people who know what I'm talking about.