ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, September 3, 1996 TAG: 9609030112
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTINA NUCKOLS STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
HOLLINS COLLEGE'S new president, Janet Rasmussen, comes to the school with interests in global education, women's issues, and creative expression.
Janet Rasmussen had never been on an airplane, had never even been outside the American Midwest, when she got a telephone call at the end of her junior year in high school.
The voice on the other end said she'd be spending her senior year in Denmark.
"I had heard about Denmark, but it was very vague, and I rushed to our encyclopedia to get a sense of where I was going," Rasmussen recalled.
Since then, Rasmussen - the first exchange student ever chosen from her hometown of Paxton, Ill., population 5,000 - has become a champion for international studies.
When Rasmussen, 47, was chosen as Hollins College's ninth president this summer, she listed international education, women's issues and creative expression as the primary themes in her life. She said she recognized a common enthusiasm for all three among Hollins officials when they approached her last year about applying for the president's position.
Rasmussen hasn't always chosen colleges with a majority of ready-made converts to her own passions. But former colleagues say she always manages to leave behind a legacy of stronger language and multicultural programs wherever she goes.
She has a certain empathy toward those who require convincing. After all, she herself grew up in a town where it was easy to forget about the outside world. Both of her parents were from farming families. Her father sold insurance to farmers. Her mother raised Janet and three younger brothers.
Denmark changed everything. Rasmussen could speak not a word of Danish when she was selected for the program, but after five months immersed in the culture, the teen-ager woke up one December morning and realized she was on the verge of bilingualism.
"I knew I had dreamed in Danish," she said, the excitement in her voice undiminished by the 30 years that have passed since that moment. "The conversations in the dream were in Danish."
Because Danish is closely related to Swedish and Norwegian, Rasmussen returned to Paxton with the ability to continue studies in three new languages. She began to concentrate on Norwegian after graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a major in English. She was accepted for graduate studies at Harvard, where she studied under an international authority on Norwegian. He encouraged her to attend the University of Oslo for a year in Norway, where she met her future husband, Ulf.
After returning to Harvard, Rasmussen began teaching classes in Scandinavian literature, folklore and civilization and the Norwegian language. Her seminar on women in the plays of Henrik Ibsen was one of the first courses offered at Harvard that examined women's roles in literature.
She had even more opportunities to test the limits of college curricula when she moved to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma and became chairwoman of the languages department. Roberta Brown, a professor in the department and now chairwoman herself, recalls a flurry of activity when Rasmussen took charge. The two women applied for and received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create classes across the curriculum that could be taught in foreign languages.
Brown said Rasmussen's excitement was contagious.
"She created a sort of energetic esprit de corps," she said.
It spread beyond the department faculty to students and the city of Tacoma. An unprecedented 75 students signed up for a new introductory course on Scandinavia, and the community backed a fund-raiser initiated by Rasmussen to create a Scandinavian cultural center on campus.
When Rasmussen moved to Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1991 to become its vice president of academic affairs, she became involved in her most ambitious curriculum revision to date.
Foreign language requirements were revived for all students, who also were required to take two global studies courses focusing on other cultures. A two-semester freshman writing class was cut in half to make room for a seminar that first-year students designed, with help from advisers, on a topic of their choice. Although they weren't requirements, Rasmussen also encouraged new courses in which subjects such as economics, anthropology, history and religion were taught in foreign languages.
Dick Quinn, who was assistant to Nebraska Wesleyan's president when Rasmussen was hired and now has her old job, said there was mixed reaction to the changes from both faculty and students.
"It's hard for our students to imagine ever being in touch with the rest of the world," he said. "She enticed us, she pushed us, she urged us to develop a curriculum that encouraged foreign study...
"She got a lot of flak, but she got it through. She worked with faculty almost one on one to convince them. A lot of people here do share her point of view but not everybody. A lot of people here don't expect to ever live any farther east than Chicago or farther west than Denver."
Rasmussen understood that attitude.
"I could identify very much with the students in Nebraska, many of whom had not had the opportunity to travel," she said.
She also downplayed the opposition to curriculum changes, noting that the process has become more and more difficult with the explosion of knowledge that has occurred in every field.
"There is, with good reason, always controversy, particularly on how students should engage foreign language study," she said, explaining that the length of time it takes to become fluent sometimes causes language courses to be dropped from general education requirements.
Rasmussen also became an advocate for creating a new major in women's studies at Nebraska Wesleyan. It was approved this spring. Gerise Herndon, co-coordinator of women's studies, said there was resentment among some older male faculty members.
"I think that was part of the Hillary Clinton syndrome," she said.
Herndon said Rasmussen's influence extended beyond the curriculum.
"She made a concerted effort to increase the number of our women faculty," she said. "I feel she was very supportive of me. Very supportive and very human."
In fact, Rasmussen helped find a part-time position on campus for Herndon's husband, who was working at another university. Rasmussen could identify with the couple's difficulties. Her husband worked for the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife during her 14 years in Nebraska.
Although the faculty and staff at Hollins are in the midst of a strategic planning process that will include a review of the college's general education requirements and other curriculum issues, Rasmussen is quick to say she won't try to copy the changes made in Nebraska.
"If there was a perfect curriculum, we would have found it," she said. "There's not one recipe for the way the undergraduate curriculum should look."
She did say that the curriculum will retain its basis in the liberal arts.
"To me, the liberal arts have definite relevance, but we may not always articulate those points of relevance," she said. "They're there, but sometimes they seem mysterious to people."
She said internships, the Hollins Abroad program and voluntary service are all ways to emphasize that relevance, and added that those programs might be strengthened through more collaboration with other colleges.
Rasmussen hopes to have some ideas from the strategic planning committee to begin testing within a year.
The walls of her office this week were still bare of pictures, which were propped against furniture waiting for nails. But there was a banner outside her door welcoming her in Norwegian, and pink carnations on the desk. Beside the flowers was a matching magic marker, which she's put to good use as she's pored over college histories and voluminous reports.
While she officially welcomed Hollins students Monday, Rasmussen met with the faculty, student leaders and college trustees beforehand.
There are many large and small decisions to be made. Rasmussen said she will study the administrative structure, which now includes three vice presidents, before making appointments. Roger Bowen, the vice president for academic affairs, resigned in April to become president of the State University of New York at New Paltz.
She's ready for one question she's sure to get from students who have become accustomed to calling her predecessor, Jane Margaret O'Brien, "Maggie."
"When we are in a public setting, I think it's important for them to call me President Rasmussen," she said.
She said she hasn't given much thought to whether she will teach any classes, but she realizes she'll have more than enough to do just being president.
"I will always be a teacher, but maybe not in the formal setting," she said. "My first responsibilities here are seeing that the common weal moves forward."
LENGTH: Long : 157 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY Staff. Janet Rasmussen was chosen as Hollinsby CNBCollege's ninth president this summer. Her interest in international
education stems from a year she spent in Denmark. color.