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Subbaswamy
Ignite!
Bay Path University staged its 26th annual Women’s Leadership Conference (WLC) in
April at the MassMutual Center. The more than 1,500 attendees at the event, which had the theme ‘Ignite,’ heard from several keynoters and could take in a number of breakout sessions. Some scenes from the event, clockwise from
left: Springfield Health and Human Services Commissioner Helen Caulton-Harris (left), Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno, and Bay
Path President Sandra Doran; Robin Roberts, Good Morning America co-anchor, was the closing keynoter and was interviewed by Doran; MassMutual employee and Springfield native Victoria Ann Rodriguez was emcee for the event; employees at MassMutual (a WLC sponsor) gather for a group photo at the conference.
efficacy and the ability to conduct business, includ- ing learning and teaching online, has fundamentally changed to the point where you’re seeing what we call UMass Flex — where flexible work is the way of the future. We will get to a state where UMass Amherst can be experienced almost just as well, in ways that matter, from wherever you are.”
BusinessWest: Finally, do you have any advice for your successor?
Subbaswamy: “I would first advise him to learn the local culture and work within those cultural norms in order to bring about change. You can’t bring about change unless you’re willing to understand and work inside that culture.
“Ours is a very consultative and participatory cam- pus, where students have their say, and our faculty and staff have their say, both through normal gover- nance but also unions. So someone who builds trust and is accessible and available, and works through our established procedures and consultative process, will succeed.” BW
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million revenue loss. How do you recover from that? “It was a situation where we couldn’t govern by
consensus, even within the leadership team, because there were members who felt very strongly, in one direction or the other, that they were right. But two factions can’t both be right, and I had to make deci- sions based on my best judgment rather than arriving at a consensus, which is what we usually do. It was very tense, and you just hoped that you made the right decision.”
BusinessWest: What did you learn about yourself as a manager and a leader through that time?
Subbaswamy: “I couldn’t show my own frustra- tions and my own self-doubt in terms of whether I’m making the right call. You have to provide confidence to everyone that we know what we’re doing. As a leader, you always have to put on a strong front, show composure, and show resolve, and that takes its toll, especially when you go back home and start reflecting on the decisions you’ve made.
“By listening and using what experience has taught you over the years, you tend to make the right calls.
It was a very stressful time. That’s why you’re see-
ing a lot of people, even younger people, leave jobs,
leave presidencies, because those were very stressful times. No one was happy, everyone wanted something different, and they took out their frustrations on the university.”
BusinessWest: How did higher education change because of the pandemic, and what has changed forever?
Subbaswamy: ‘Fundamentally, online education came to be accepted as a result of the pandemic. Until then, there was sort of a significant prejudice that online wasn’t good enough. Residential universi- ties thought of it as second-class education. But once everyone was forced to go online, you saw two things: you can’t suddenly say, ‘we’re giving you a second- class education and charging you first-class rates,’ so people started taking notice of the fact that you can, and must, do just as well. And secondly, everyone was really surprised by how much technology had improved in recent times — and even in real time.
“Zoom became the coin of the realm, and its improvements became accelerated because they had the investment money to do so. In classes and in busi- ness, everyone started being connected online in very effective ways. The advantages of remote work, the
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