Dear Oliners,

While I have done my best to communicate frequently and broadly across campus, during my conversations with staff, students, and faculty, I realized it wasn’t enough. Given the constraints of how many people I can converse with (in person) on any given day (week/month), I thought I might share more about what’s on my mind through a Frankly Speaking article. This is an experiment and, as always, I look forward to your thoughts and reactions.

Jumping right in: during my first week on campus, several members of our community had heard about our family dog. The first question from many of you early on: are you going to change the “no dogs on campus policy”? You might remember I mentioned this at my first Town Hall: I declined to change or tackle the dog policy. 

Of course, at the time, my dog was still living in New York City and it was easy to leave things in place. She has, in the meantime, relocated to Needham. We created a village to care for her back in New York, trusted walkers, a behavioral trainer, and my assistant to name just a few.Other than identifying a trainer, here at Olin, for the moment, I am her entire support system. My care plan (ill-formed in hindsight, as I will explain in a moment) entailed leaving her at the house and walking her every couple of hours until I could find dogwalkers. Not a perfect plan and it would have worked except I neglected to account for all the people entering the house—for repairs, bringing food for student dinners, and cleaning after events. 

At this point, you might be wondering exactly where I’m going with this story. Our policy essentially forbids dogs in campus buildings. And yet, many of you have seen my dog with me on campus. Some of you have even had meetings with me while she lays next to my desk. Notwithstanding the policy, I couldn’t leave her home with strangers coming in and out. As President, I was breaking Olin’s policy.

It’s a little thing. But I wrestle every day with what my behavior signals to campus. Everyone has been kind and understanding. But one of the things we, as a society, have seen is the increasing willingness of leaders to bend rules for their own benefit. The power of self-interest has permeated our systems. While I certainly don’t have delusions of grandeur and don’t equate bringing my dog to campus with what we read about in the news, I take seriously the idea of modeling the values we purport to represent.

Life is filled with choices. In this situation, I balanced caring for a beloved member of our family with ensuring the safety of others and in so doing, chose to violate an Olin policy. Our choices have consequences. 

I share this story with you for a few reasons. First, I continue to harbor a nagging sense of setting a bad example. Second, I am contemplating whether to send our dog back to New York City until I can figure out a better solution and that makes me a little sad. Most importantly, though, I wanted to start a conversation about how we, as individuals, make decisions, and decide “to do the right thing”.

That’s all I have for now. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Feel free to send thoughts and reflections to president@olin.edu.

P.S. If you think it’s time to reconsider the dog policy, let me know.