When Dr. Susan West Engelkemeyer, president of Nichols College, took the reins of that small New England business college, she was acutely aware of just how male-dominated the space was. Higher education administration as a whole, Nichols’ executive team and faculty, the world of business education — all of it was largely run by men. So she set out to change that representation of business education and to create a more inclusive campus for women at all levels.
Today, Nichols’ leadership team is evenly split between both genders. There’s a female majority on the faculty, and the university is proud of its Institute for Women’s Leadership, which was founded in 2013.
The college president who majored in equestrian studies in undergrad and whose childhood dream was to be a bareback rider in the circus has much to celebrate by way of the legacy she’s leaving in a space where she never saw herself growing up.
“There’s not exactly a direct path from [equestrian studies] to the college presidency,” laughs Engelkemeyer, who says her life and career have benefited from “a lot of serendipity.”
“In higher ed, the normal route would be to become a department chair, then a dean, then a president from a provost. I didn’t become a department chair nor a provost, because I didn’t think I’d be that good at them,” she says.
But she did learn that she loved students and loved being in the classroom. After graduating with her bachelor’s degree, she started a small business with her husband — they’d purchased an old JC Penney store and made it into a mini mall, operating one store within it and renting the rest of the space out to other businesses. She went back to school to get a master of business administration degree, but, as she was beginning to prepare her business plan, her department chair suggested she teach for a year.
“I decided then to go back for a Ph.D. and make higher ed my career,” she says.
