Scientific data and good advice help shape York College’s Gunter-Smith

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It was fall 2013, and college’s wrestling program was under scrutiny, facing serious accusations: hazing, other violations of the student code of conduct.

Dr. Pamela Gunter-Smith was in the heart of managing the emergency. She needed the best, the most proper school response, so she reached out to one of her mentors.

She called Donna Shalala.

At the time of the call, Shalala, a former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration, was president of the University of Miami.

“She was the head of a Big D-3 powerhouse,” Gunter-Smith said.

Shalala helped Gunter-Smith develop an appropriate response for the college. After an investigation, the wrestling program was put on disciplinary probation that same year. Some students received warnings, others were expelled.

Gunter-Smith recalled that time – Wrestlegate, she refers to it – in an example of when she reached out to others for key advice, smart mentorship.

“When I have a specific question. Who can you call on to help you? Asking for help comes with the experience to share ideas,” she said.

Data, research matters

Gunter-Smith joined York College after previously serving as provost and academic vice president of Drew University in Madison, N.J. Before Drew, she served as the Porter Professor of Physiology at Spelman College from 1992 to 2006. And before Spelman, she was a research scientist and science administrator at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md. from 1981 to 1992.

She’s held numerous leadership positions, board and government appointments. The list fills pages. Gunter-Smith will tell you she doesn’t have time for hobbies.

Although her career path eventually swerved to academia, her first love is science.

“Since I was 5 years old, I always knew I wanted to be a research scientist,” she said.

And it’s that extensive science experience that helps lead her career and guide her decisions. As a leader you need to strike a balance with intuition and with data, she said.

“There are some administrators and presidents that have a great big idea … and want to go and get it done,” she said. But that idea needs to coupled with good, solid data.

“I like data, and data helps formulate my decision,” she said. “Successful administrators have a bit of both.”

What sets York College apart?

Part of her challenge when she started at York College three years ago stemmed from the competitive higher education landscape. Affordability for private colleges was no longer going to be a sole selling point for students, but it had been a successful selling point for York College.

Guiding that change would be challenging. She entered an institution that had experienced growth, success. But she had to push for change – not just for change’s sake – but what she could see was on the horizon.

“That is a challenge. Working within that culture … when you come to place where things are going well,” she said. “We needed to tell people our story, what makes us distinctive? What gives us that extra value. Return on investment for students is important.”

Needed to be seen, to be heard

With the initial career path Gunter-Smith chose in science, she had to stand out to get noticed. As a woman, a woman of color, being the “first and only” came with its own set of challenges, she said.

“I was one brash, female scientist,” she told the Business Journal. “I had to work to be seen and heard.” She had to be better than her male counterparts.

Advice from a colleague years later helped her focus. While at Spelman, she was feeling a bit overwhelmed at a certain point in her career. A provost, 30 years her senior, advised her that you can’t be perfect all the time, and sometimes you just have to do your best and your best will have to be good enough.

But how about those pressure-filled conversations about successful women: the ones that tend to filter back to “how do you do it all?” Family, career, dinners at home, attending every school event.

Let’s flip that question sideways: Do women have to do it all?

No, you don’t, Gunter-Smith said. But that doesn’t mean that personal life and your professional career can’t be meaningful.

“I didn’t do PTA and didn’t do Cub Scouts,” she said. “I think you can have a meaningful life. You can have parts of it. That’s the choice that you can make.”

About Dr. Pamela Gunter-Smith

Gunter-Smith is married to J. Lawrence (J. L.) Smith, a native of St. Louis, Mo., who serves as a systems administrator for I.B.M. They are the parents of two sons: Lealand, who lives in Nashville, Tenn., and Philip, who lives in Auburn, Ala.