Whatever Happened to...

In the middle of last year, Peter W. Stanley '62, associate professor of History, was looking for a job. At 39, Stanley--a confident, well-spoken, intelligent Harvard-educated-and-trained professor-just couldn't decide what to do. An aristocratic Hawaiian family was offering the young professor, an expert on the Philippines, a chance to spend ten years in Hawaii and write the ultimate history of the islands. The New York Times was on the phone, asking Stanley what he thought about editing foreign news. He was not without options.

Six months later, as Dean of Carleton College--a well-respected, small liberal arts college in the wilds of Northfield, Minn.--Stanley has a job that he never bargained for. "If anybody had told me (a) that I'd be in college administration or (b) that I'd be in a position of responsibility, I would have told them that they were crazy," Stanley said in an interview this week. By the time he turned 40--about three months ago--Stanley's life had taken a complete turnabout. "Having gone through such a major change," Stanley says, "turning 40 didn't feel like anything."

As Dean of Carleton, Stanley says his work combines the job of the Dean of Faculty with a general administrative overview of College life. "It's almost indecent being paid for what I do," Stanley, who puts in about 15 hours a day in the office, says. "It's a great deal," he repeats. "It's almost unthinkable that anybody gets paid for doing this." What surprises him most about his job--the second-ranking position in a college of 1700 undergraduates and 150 full-time faculty members--is that "you can actually do something. The leap is extraordinary," he admits. "I couldn't believe that they (the committee that picked Stanley after a search last spring) really wanted me."

At Harvard, Stanley divided his time between research--focusing on United States-Philippine relations in the 20th century--and his teaching abilities. At Carleton, Stanley has been forced to abandon daily teaching for administrative work, but from what his associates say, he's made the adjustment perfectly. "I'm glad we got him," says Jean Phillips, associate dean of students. "He's a breath of fresh air." Stanley is responsible for a great deal of Carleton's daily functioning as well as for serious, long-term academic planning. "I'm a micro-Rosovsky," he explains, a teaching/scholarly dean whose primary responsibility is with the faculty. Moving from the stacks of Yenching Library to a desk in an administrative building, Stanley has confronted a "set of problems that are natural and human." Nothing is abstract and unimaginable--from deciding on budget expenditures to dealing with undergraduate's problems. "This is where the buck stops," he says, adding that his hardest decisions come when he has to make tenure decisions. "To be deciding somebody else's future is very grave," he notes. But as Carleton's President Robert Edwards says, Stanley has survived in "great and glorious fashion. He has demonstrated that he can say 'no' with grace."

The switch, however, has not been all fun and games. Stanley admits to missing teaching on a daily basis; guest lecturing in other people's classes doesn't give him the "rhythm of the year." Stanley grew up in Harvard's academic environment, getting his B.A., M.A. and his doctorate from the History Department. As an associate professor, Stanley was the department's utility infielder, as much at home in turn-of-the-century America--he taught the now-dead History 1621, "The Progressive Era"--as in 19th century imperial China. Stanley headed the list of lecturers in the ever-popular History 1711, "The United States and East Asia," drawing frequent laughs with his well-rehearsed and informative lectures. "It's a real shame that he left," says one of the undergrads who flocked to 1711 when he discovered Stanley was leaving at the end of last year. "He was one of the few faculty members who seemed to care about his courses." Although Stanley has not lost his taste for the academic--he is off next month to do research in the Philippines and will return to Harvard for a seminar in May--his new duties have forced him to shift gears.

Because he spent most of his adult life in Cambridge, Stanley's new environment also came as something of a shock. Northfield boasts a population of 12,000, a far cry from the megalopolis of Boston. "I like big cities and I loved Boston," he says, adding that the movies, restaruants and art museums in Carleton are "nothing to write home about." Like most transplanted city dwellers, however, Stanley appreciates the advantages of small-town living. "You can go away and leave the door unlocked," he explains. "The air is just staggering." But, he's quick to add, "too much peace and you die." He and his wife of two years, a former administrative assistant of Harvard's History Department, don't hesitate to hop into the car for the one-hour ride to Minneapolis/St. Paul or the two-hour trip down to Chicago.

Carleton's intellectual climate, although different from Harvard's, has offered Stanley a chance to make his own decisions, and use the people-to-people skills he possesses. "Although this isn't a publishing faculty," Stanley explains, "it is a learned faculty. I am learning about all the things you ever dream about," he says. If Stanley uses Carleton for what it's worth, his new-found home is also profiting. "The level of conversations here has improved on all levels," says President Edwards, due in part to Stanley's fresh influx of ideas. Although Stanley admits he misses being "in the center of everything," he hasn't tried to make Carleton into something it's not. "The aura of the Yard is upon him," Edwards concludes, "but he wears it lightly."

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