Page 21 - BusinessWest July 20, 2020

‘This Is Our Moment’
New Bay Path President Says School Will Be a Leader in Time of Crisis
By George O’Brien
Sandra Doran says her family has long been attracted to careers in education and the law.
One great-grandfather traveled from New York to Colorado and set up the first one-room schoolhouse in that state, she noted, while her grandfather was superintendent of a school district in New York City, and her mother was a music teacher. And her other great-grandfather was a bankruptcy lawyer, kept especially busy during the Great Depression.
So it’s logical she would take one of those career paths. Actually, she took both.
Indeed, after serving as chief legal officer for Shaw’s supermarkets, she later served as vice president, general counsel, and chief of staff at Leslie University in Cambridge. And it was that position that eventually inspired a full shift to higher education — although she always calls on her legal background — and put her on a path to ... Bay Path University and its president’s office.
“At Leslie, I came to realize that higher edu- cation was my passion, and my calling,” said Doran, who’s been handed the attractive, but perhaps also daunting, assignment of succeed- ing Carol Leary and building on the strong foun- dation she built during a 25-year tenure that saw the college become a university and expand in every way imaginable.
While the pandemic presents a number of challenges, Sandra Doran says, it might also create opportunities for Bay Path University.
“This is a historical leadership opportunity for all of us — how we lead through the months and years ahead is really going to define what kind of community we are, how resilient we are, and now adaptive and nimble we are.
She arrives at Bay Path at a critical juncture, when several powerful forces are colliding — stern challenges in higher education that started emerging years ago; the COVID-19 pandemic, which is exacerbating those challenges and cre- ating new ones; a financial crisis; and a nation- wide focus on racial justice.
This collision of crises, as Doran called them, presents a real test — actually, several of them — but also opportunities for the school, and higher education in general.
“This is a historical leadership opportunity for all of us — how we lead through the months
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