Clayton Palumbo ’29
Exec. News Editor
One year after she said goodbye to the Trinity community in what was billed as a ‘retirement’, President Emerita Joanne Berger-Sweeney (known affectionately as ‘JBS’) is back to work, this time as “President-in-Residence” of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Established in 2001, the Judith Block McLaughlin Presidents-in-Residence Program brings distinguished college or university presidents to Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) to teach courses, attend classes, meet with students in private office hours and advise students on formative academic and career decisions (gse.harvard.edu). When asked about the appointment, Berger-Sweeney told the Tripod, “It’s a significant honor. To have been asked to do this, and to be able to share insights with the next generation of higher education leaders at Harvard, it feels pretty significant.” Berger-Sweeney also shared that she was offered the position before retiring, but decided to defer the opportunity to ensure she could be fully present in her responsibilities at Trinity.
After she announced she was retiring officially, HGSE called again, and this time Berger-Sweeney agreed enthusiastically at the suggestion of two mentors who had previously served as President-in-Residence: Diana Chapman-Walsh, President Emerita of Wellesley College; and Lawrence Bacow, former Chancellor of MIT and President Emeritus of Tufts University. Bacow would later become President of Harvard University, after serving as President-in-Residence of HGSE. Berger-Sweeney noted that she had the opportunity to begin her tenure at Harvard directly after her time at Trinity came to a close, but chose instead to take a year off before beginning: “I could have potentially started September of 2025, but I was just tired. Being a president is a very hard and draining job, particularly in this political environment. So when I was invited a year ago, I just said, ‘I’m sorry. I need to take a break.’ But after a year, I thought I had the energy and I was still close enough to the presidency that I thought I could offer helpful insights to graduate students.”
Now that she is nearly a month into her time in Cambridge, Berger-Sweeney is settling into her role, interacting with students and teaching a course on Higher Education Leadership. She admitted with a laugh she’s a bit ‘out of practice’ as a professor. In her 11 years at Trinity, she taught only one course, a neuroscience class on learning and memory, which was held on Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though the circumstances provided their own set of challenges, Berger-Sweeney was in her ‘wheelhouse,’ saying, “when I’m teaching neuroscience, I am very much in my comfort zone. I taught neuroscience for 15 years at Wellesley College.” Now, while teaching about leadership, “the kind of evidence that you use and how you prepare a course is quite different than how I would prepare one of my science courses. The courses that I teach now are very much case studied based.”
During her time in Hartford, Berger-Sweeney cherished the individual interactions that a tight-knit liberal arts environment like Trinity provided. Looking ahead to the upcoming year, she remarked that she is most excited to form similar relationships with her new students, saying she is excited to “get to know these students better, to hear their stories, why they’re interested in higher education, at a time when it seems as though higher education is so fraught, in which there is some perhaps lack of trust in society about higher education, it’s so interesting to get to know the individuals and what inspires them.” When asked what advice she would give to students in today’s world, she noted how important it is to have an open mind and to be a continuous learner. “When I stop learning, I will die.”
