One of the country’s first out college presidents is stepping down from his long-held position at a Philadelphia university.
Sean Buffington, president of University of the Arts since August 2007, will resign from his position effective Dec. 31. He has accepted a position at the Henry Luce Foundation in New York. Kirk Pillow, the current provost for UArts, has been elected interim president by the board effective Jan. 1. Buffington will remain at the university through of January to oversee the transition.
Buffington, 42, was recruited for the presidency by UArts from his previous position as an associate provost at Harvard University. Buffington said the reception was extremely positive at UArts.
“I was upfront with the search committee with my sexuality from the beginning,” he said. “The chairman of the search committee and the chairman of the board even met my partner. It was never an issue.”
We he arrived at UArts, he was not the only openly gay high-level administrator but was, to the best of his knowledge, the school’s first openly gay president, and only one of a few out college presidents in the country at that time, he said.
“When I first got here, there was a vice president who was openly gay, and of course there were some faculty members too, and there have been a lot more to come out since I have been president,” Buffington said.
As an LGBT person in a position of leadership, Buffington said he believes he and everyone in similar positions have an obligation to be open about their sexuality.
“It is important for us to stand as evidence that one can be LGBT and out and occupy important positions of leadership in our communities,” he said. “I hope that in being out I have served as an inspiration to younger academic professionals.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education profiled Buffington when he was appointed president at UArts and lamented the fact that there were not many out presidents. Buffington said this prompted a lot of LGBT presidents to “raise their hands and say, ‘Hey, I am out.’” According to Buffington, this actually led to the formation of an LGBT presidents group that communicates regularly via email and has held two in-person meetings. Buffington estimates there are at least 50 presidents in the group now.
To academic professionals considering whether or not to come out, Buffington says: “Do it.”
“If you have the belief that you can make a difference in your academic community, then go for it,” he said. “If you are going to be a leader in higher education, one should be upfront and honest, not just about what he believes intellectually, but in all aspects of his life, including his sexuality. The principles of openness and transparency are fundamental in the academic community.”
Buffington’s legacy at UArts began when he asked administrators and faculty, “Are we the institution we want to be?” Thus began a thorough self-assessment process that started with the faculty and ended up engaging everyone in the UArts community, Buffington said.
“We identified a number of areas we wanted to improve, then began a thorough planning process which led to big changes — new curricula that encourages collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, new majors, new faculty,” he said. “The university is in a very different place than it was seven years ago. That is not just my accomplishment but also a community accomplishment, initiated by me, but created and imagined and implemented by everyone.”
Before UArts, Buffington spent 13 years as an administrator at Harvard in various positions, such as assistant director of the Harvard Alumni Association from 1994-97, strategic planning and development work in the development office from 1997-99, assistant provost for Interfaculty Programs from 1999-2002, and finishing as associate provost for Arts and Culture from 2002-07.
During his time at Harvard, Buffington said he encountered no pushback from his colleagues because of his sexuality.
“Within the general community of the university, it was largely a non-issue,” he said. “I was out and my supervisors knew I was out. Every once in a while interacting with an alumni or donor, there may have been internalized homophobia, moments when I thought, maybe this is something I should not talk about, but 15-20 years ago we tended to censor ourselves more in those situations.”
The La Plata, Md., native said it was hard growing up gay in a very-Catholic family and in a small rural town.
“I went to Catholic grade school and high school,” Buffington said. “It wasn’t virulent but kind of an assumed low-level homophobia that generally permeated the culture that I grew up in. I certainly understood that I was attracted to men in high school.”
When Buffington came out his junior year of college at Harvard, his family was understanding, despite their religion.
“They were very loving and supportive when I decided to come out,” he said. “But it was challenging for them to come to grips with something they were unfamiliar with.”
Buffington credits the strong activism presence on campus as the impetus behind his decision to come out.
“Coming to terms and accepting that part of me took a couple of years of a different environment at Harvard. Boston and Harvard were reasonably welcoming places, but I remember that it still felt uncommon to see people standing up for LGBT rights and visibility.
“It was an interesting moment in the late ’80s. It was kind of in the immediate upwelling of activism spurred by the AIDS crisis. ACT UP was a very significant presence, right at the end of high school and beginning of college. Then, Queer Nation emerged as a more generally engaged activist organization while I was in college. That was the moment that I sort of came of age.”
Shortly thereafter, Buffington began to see himself going into academia as a career.
“When I came back to Harvard after grad school in Michigan and started in an administrative role, new and exciting opportunities kept presenting themselves to me. Each moment became another step in a 20-year career in higher education.”
Buffington never expected he would land a presidency — not because he was gay, but because “I don’t have a Ph.D.,” he said jokingly.
“The traditional path is to work your way up from a tenured faculty position. I knew it would be challenging because I didn’t go that route. But I seem to be among a growing number of presidents with vastly different life experiences, who are taking non-traditional paths.”