Under the leadership of professor Joe Donelly, journalism students at Whittier College created Poetinis: Drinking In The Truth, a blog that includes stories about the College, its staff, students, and what is going on in the world. Cecilia Scott ’17 recently sat down with President Herzberger and spoke about the journey that led her to Whittier College, her passion for a liberal arts education, and her hopes for the future of the College.
Below is a short excerpt. To read the complete profile story, click here.
After getting a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Penn State and earning a doctorate in social psychology at the University of Illinois, Herzberger authored numerous articles and several books, writing about family, race, affirmative action, and domestic violence.
She taught psychology at Northwestern University, a school with large class sizes that left Herzberger feeling disconnected from her students. She left Northwestern and went to teach at Trinity College, a small, liberal-arts college in Connecticut. There, she fell in love with liberal-arts education, which she wrote about in an essay for The Huffington Post in 2013: “[A liberal education] is one that helps students learn to think critically and communicate effectively. It integrates ideas from multiple disciples, builds competence and confidence, and teaches students how to analyze situations from various vantage points. It teaches students to recognize the complexity of problems and to offer innovative solutions, and it provides opportunity to apply learning in work settings and across the globe.”
She remained at Trinity for 25 years until a headhunter called her and told her that she had the perfect match for Herzberger. She became Whittier’s 14th president in July, 2005. “I was thrilled as soon as I came here and learned about Whittier’s values and the kinds of students we serve,” she says. “It was spectacular.”
