While Endicott has been constantly changing since doors opened in 1939, one thing has remained constant for the last 29 years. Dr. Richard Wylie, Endicott’s president, who will be celebrating his 30 year anniversary in 2017. Over his time he, he has been an integral part of Endicott’s transformation. He reflects on his experience over the last three decades positively, and offers insight to where Endicott was in the past, and where it is going in the future.
“When I came to Endicott, it had 14 buildings, it was on the verge of bankruptcy, it had less than 500 students, buildings were boarded up, and it had defaulted on all the bank governance for mortgages and loans. It was in real difficult shape,” Wylie said. With things looking pretty dismal for Endicott’s future, interim president Dr. Francis Gamelin informed Wylie that the board of directors was looking to sell the school.
“I had the meeting, and then the following Saturday I called my Board of Directors together and I told them ‘I’m out of here, I’m not here to sell,’ said Wylie. “They gave me two years to turn it around, and we started building Williston, and we started building everything, and it’s turned into one of the great success stories.”
Even with all the struggles he knew Endicott would face at the beginning of his career as president, he knew the school had a lot going for it, and was positive that it would be able to make a quick turnaround.
“I knew that it was in deep trouble, but not as much trouble as it was in. It had a faculty that was pretty aggressive, the administration and faculty we’re getting along. There were a lot of those challenges, but I knew it had its geographic location, its beauty, and the fact that people were willing to save it gave me the chance to say ‘let’s do it, let’s do it together,’” he said.
“I don’t think we’d be where we are today if it weren’t for him,” said Joanne Waldner, Assistant Vice President at Endicott. “When we first came, it was a struggling institution, and one that was questionable how its future was gonna go, and he just wouldn’t accept that,” she said. “He just kept pushing and changing and bringing in people who saw his vision.”
While Wylie was confident that they could turn Endicott around and improve it on the outside, he felt that internally, the college had lost its mission.
“The president who had been before me, who had been there six years, she wanted to get rid of internships, she wanted to make it a Liberal Arts college, and she lost the mission, lost the uniqueness,” Wylie said. “So, we brought all that back, it was a two year women’s college. At the end of my first year, we went four years, and then in ‘94 we went co-ed, and we’ve just been growing ever since,” he said.
Photo Taken By Terry Slater
Doctor Wylie making a speech at the newest finished project on campus- A memorial to those who serve
Endicott today sits at 235 acres, with approximately 2,700 undergraduate students, 55 buildings, 30 residence halls, 23 Bachelor programs, and over 70 student organizations. Before turning this institution into what it is today, Wylie worked at plenty of other well known schools, such as the University of Connecticut, Temple University, and the University of Colorado. Each college has taught him something different, and have proven to be very different from what he sees at Endicott now.
“At UConn, it was before it became the great university, but it was still, I’ll use the word boring. They weren’t creative, there was so many approval processes. The kids weren’t getting any experience,” said Wylie.
To combat this problem, Wylie decided to start taking his students on a bus to Hartford during their class period to teach them by offering real world experience. After working at UConn, he moved to Temple University in Pennsylvania.
“I did that for four years, but my classes ran two, three, four hundred, and I didn’t get to know people,” said Wylie.
After realizing that Temple was not the ideal place for him, he moved out to the University of Colorado, where he was faced with one of the toughest decisions in his career.
“At Colorado, I fired my best teacher, because at the University of Colorado, you ‘publish or perish’. You’ve got to write a book. If you don’t write a book, you lose your job. It was easy, that was the rule,” said Wylie.
After being forced to fire his best friend and best professor at the University, he drove to the president’s house late at night and resigned then and there.
“I never want to be at a place where teaching and being with people and the students aren’t the most important,” Wylie said.
With his experience at other colleges, Wylie has learned a few things from other presidents about what it takes. After working for plenty of other schools, he knew exactly what he was looking for and what he wanted in an institution.
“Some of the universities I worked with, the president hid behind two secretaries, glass walls, and you never saw [them]. I didn’t feel that was the right thing. I would hear that students would graduate and have never met the president, have never talked to them, had never had events with them. That’s not what I wanted, so I kept looking for some place that I would feel more comfortable personally. I still like to go to the dining hall, go to the events, and I try to get to as many as I can. I think that’s unique,” he said.
Being around for nearly 30 years, Wylie said it’s the malleability of the school that made him interested in Endicott in the first place.
“I saw an opportunity here to try to do something and make a difference. I think, for me, it was an environment where I could build, I could see things that were really important to me. For me, this gave me the chance to be a builder, and I can see things that others don’t see. Here, I found the opportunity of building on my strengths and ask for help on the weaknesses.”
Thomas Redman, Vice President of Admission at Endicott, stated that Wylie rebuilt this campus “brick by brick,” and has “always had that vision for improvement.”
“If you drive into campus today, compared to when he first got here, it’s a totally different institution. It’s constantly improving and evolving,” said Redman.
Photo Taken By FJ Gaylor
Throughout his time here, Wylie states that he has no regrets, but it hasn’t always been easy either. Whether it’s parking, housing, or arming campus safety, Wylie has faced plenty of pushback from the community in the last 30 years.
“I have no regrets. I have been able to travel the world and do all kinds of things, and that has made me a stronger, richer person, more sensitive on a lot of issues. I’m scared to death of this legalizing marijuana. I know that alcohol may be worse, but I don’t know what that’s gonna do to the young people, to the college campuses. I think those are my regrets, it’s not anything here, it’s more what I think is the changing culture,” he said. “I think sometimes getting rid of some of your past biases and habits are the hardest things to deal with.”
In Wylie’s eyes, what this campus needs to focus on now is getting recognition and keeping it, and expanding in what we can internally.
“Somebody said to me many years ago ‘nobody knows of Endicott’. Endicott’s well recognized and well known in a lot of places. We need to continue to work on that recognition and awareness. If I get bigger, I have to build a new library, a new gym, then the costs go up. I think it’s how you get better at everything you do. We have over 40 different locations off this campus, around Massachusetts and around New England and Europe and everything else. We need to continue to build those programs,” Wylie said.
“I would like to see it just continuing to get stronger, I’m not sure I would like to see it get much larger, but I think just enhancing and making sure we’re on the cutting age of staying current,” said Waldner.
In the coming years, Wylie said we can expect Endicott to continue transforming but not to get much bigger than it currently is. He plans, for now, to keep Endicott as a college, rather than changing it over to a university.
“You get measured by the company you keep. I kind of like sticking with the college because a college is, by definition and by practice, much more committed to a student than a university, where you bring teaching fellows in and faculty have to write their books. And I’ve been there, done that. And I like the close relationship,” said Wylie. The one wish that Wylie has for Endicott is that we will become more understanding and kind, because that is the only way he believes this campus can grow for everyone. For this campus to work, the students need to understand that the decisions he makes are in the best interests for everyone, even if they initially disagree.
“The politics of this election and everything else show us how bad things can be if we can’t get along. We’ve got to learn to compromise, we’ve got to learn to understand,” said Wylie. “It’s the understanding of the choices that we have.”
While Wylie has loved his time here at Endicott, he doesn’t plan on hanging around campus when he chooses to retire. When he makes that decision, he stated that he will miss being able to walk around and simply greet all of his students and faculty. He has created such a presence on this campus with everyone he’s met, and there will definitely be an absence of his energy when he retires.
“I think that one of the greatest damages a person can do is when they leave, hang around. You’ve got a new person that comes in to take your role. You be supportive of them, you help them, but you’re invisible,” said Wylie. “That’ll be hard for me, but that really is the best thing for the next administration.”
Thankfully, many at Endicott don’t see him leaving anytime soon. This career and campus has become his passion and his life, and the people around him definitely appreciate that.
“I think Doctor Wylie loves what he’s doing and he’s going to continue to do it as long as he possibly can,” said Waldner.
“He’s not going anywhere, he really isn’t. I don’t know where he gets his energy, I don’t know how he does it,” said Redman. “Endicott really is a big part of his life, I just don’t see Endicott without him.”