Mark Burstein, a native of New Jersey, has made some Wisconsin Jewish history this year.
As of July 1, Burstein, 52, became the first Jewish president of Lawrence University, a 165-year-old institution based in Appleton that is widely regarded as one of the state’s and nation’s finest private liberal arts universities.
But he doesn’t just bring a uniquely Jewish background to the job.
“He just had a really unique set of skills and experiences that made him the perfect choice for the position,” according Nancy Wall.
Wall is associate professor of biology at Lawrence. She was one of four faculty members — plus one alumna, two students and eight trustees — on the university’s search committee, which she said decided unanimously to hire Burstein.
Wall said his experiences include having seen academic life from almost all angles. His mother was a professor of English at Drew University in Madison, N.J., which meant “he grew up at a liberal arts college and saw the life of a professor.”
In addition, he was an undergraduate student at Vassar College and is now a trustee of that institution; and worked in academic administration at Princeton and Columbia Universities. To Wall, those experiences gave him the perspective of a student, trustee, professor and administrator.
And he has yet one more set of important education and experiences. He earned a Master of Business Administration degree in finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and worked as a public finance investment banker.
That means “he has a really strong business background,” according to Sarah Schott, an active Lawrence alumna and now vice president and chief compliance officer of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance in Milwaukee.
Schott, who is married to Milwaukee Jewish Day School head of school Brian King and is a member of Lawrence’s board of trustees, said, “As you look at the challenges liberal arts colleges will face, they have to position themselves for success as a business, as well as making it a place of educational excellence.”
So “we picked the best candidate,” Schott said. “That he happens to be Jewish is fabulous.”
But Burstein does not just “happen to be Jewish” in the sense of how important being Jewish is for him.
“Judaism was and is a strong part of my identity,” Burstein told The Chronicle in a telephone interview on Sept. 16. “And so being engaged in Jewish issues has been and continues to be very important.”
He said he was active in Young Judea when he was growing up, ultimately becoming president of the organization’s New Jersey region.
He also took a year off between high school graduation and entering college to attend the Institute for Youth Leaders from Abroad (Machon L’Madrichei Chutz La’Aretz) in Israel; and he spent his junior year of college at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Finally, his first job after college was with the National Havurah Committee, where he was assistant director and institute coordinator, according to his resume.
Nevertheless, “I never really thought about being professionally engaged in the Jewish community,” Burstein said. “I was and continue to be interested in the issues around mission-driven organizations and how they are led and managed.”
Those interests led him to work for New York City in two capacities, in the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and in the Department of Sanitation.
That second job led him “serendipitously” to university administration. His boss, Sanitation Commissioner Emily Lloyd, left that job to become the executive vice president of Columbia University — “and she took me with her,” Burstein said.
That was some 20 years ago. Ultimately, he moved to Princeton University — and that school “takes very seriously the idea of creating leaders for higher education in general, not just for Princeton,” he said.
Princeton’s then-president, Shirley Tilghman, “was the first person who talked to me about maybe becoming a liberal arts college president,” Burstein said.
He not only liked the idea, but after speaking with representatives of different schools, “Lawrence spoke uniquely to me as an institution.”
He likes “the academic strength” of Lawrence and how Appleton is “a municipality that is large enough for some distractions, but not too large to be too distracting.”
He also said that “more than half” of Lawrence’s students do community service, and said Appleton in general is a place “where people really care about each other.”
He also said that he and his spouse, business executive David Calle, with whom he has been together 24 years, are interested in “the quality of life that is available in Appleton,” including the opportunity to “get out into nature more quickly.”
Though still new at the job — and his official inauguration celebration is scheduled to take place Oct. 25-26 — Burstein has some general ideas of what he wants to do as president.
“One of the real strengths of Lawrence is that it really wants to be a better version of itself,” he said. “We are an institution that provides a strong, rigorous academic experience and a quality community to students. I hope that I can make it even more of an institution like that.”
In addition, “I’m a firm believer that students learn many things outside the classroom” as well as in, he said. “Finding ways to support [that] is also very important to me.”
While neither his being Jewish nor Lawrence’s past as an institution founded by the Methodist Christian denomination came up while he was being interviewed for the job, an issue that did arise was making Lawrence “even more supportive of students whose faith is part of their identity,” he said. “I’m very interested” in doing that.
And while he acknowledged his background has made him supportive of Israel, he said he believes in universities being open to diverse views of the Middle East.
“If there was a pro-Palestinian group at Lawrence, that would be fine with me as long as there was conversation around those issues,” he said. “That is the learning process. We don’t want to create an environment that only has one view available, even if that view happens to be the one I agree with.”
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