While being interviewed for the position of Guilford College’s eighth president, Kent Chabotar arrived in Greensboro by plane and was driven to the college campus. In summer 2002, he made his first solo car trip to Greensboro and, unfamiliar with the area and driving through Greensboro on his own for the first time, he could not figure out where the campus was.
“The signs marking the college were so bad that I couldn’t find it,” he said. “I was at the Friendly Shopping Center before I decided to call Joyce (Eaton) to direct me to school.”
The incident inspired Chabotar to add more prominent Guilford College markers on the outskirts of campus.
Making Guilford more noticeable has apparently been Chabotar’s plan from the get-go.
Since October of his first year, Chabotar and the Strategic Long Range Planning (SLRP) committee have been devising a plan to bring prominence to Guilford College. They are striving to make Guilford a well-known liberal arts school strong in specific academic areas. The second draft of the plan was e-mailed to the community on April 1.
“Right now I feel like we’re too thinly spread,” said Chabotar. “Guilford needs direction. It needs to know what it’s good at. People should come here because Guilford has a reputation for strength in some area whether its forensic biology or social activism.”
Chabotar knew he had his work cut out for him when he accepted the position and he says that he is up to the challenge.
“People were not reluctant to level with me,” he said. “They showed me both the problems of the school and the opportunity that it offered. You’ve got to remember that I’m a finance and fact guy – I like data collecting. I knew I was investing in a potential winner.”
Chabotar intends to address certain campus-wide problems such as the school’s ongoing retention difficulties. Currently, retention rates are average but, according to Chabotar, not good enough. He compares the image of the school to a Rorschach inkblot test.
“Sometimes it’s unclear as to what exactly the image of Guilford is. A lot of students come to this school expecting something completely different than what it actually is.”
He sees admissions literature showing the diversity of the student body as a possible solution.
“I want to see an athlete, a scholar, a kid with blue hair, a homecoming king or queen, and a social activist,” he said. “That’s what the real world is like.”
In addition, the president would like to increase the school’s size to 3,000, as he believes that Guilford will have more room for academic growth with a larger student body.
“Right now we have 90 programs,” he said. “That’s too many for our current size. A larger amount of students and faculty will give us 90 programs that really mean something.”
Guilford is Chabotar’s first experience with a Quaker school, and he has no intention of eliminating Guilford’s religious affiliation.
“My plan for this school is to fix the things that need fixing without wrecking the things that are OK,” he said. “Our Quaker heritage is one aspect of the school that we need to make sure we maintain.”
It’s been almost two years since Chabotar became president. He has come to appreciate many aspects of the school, from its uniquely diverse student body to the way campus looks in the spring.
But he knows that there are still changes that need to be made.
“This is a college that needs to believe in itself. It needs to be tolerant of differences. Guilford needs to decide what it’s going to be and uphold that image.