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MC interim president Drugovich just getting started

Marietta College's Board of Trustees telegraphed the message clearly, according to Margaret Drugovich. They didn't want a bench warmer.

Drugovich smiles a little as she relates that fact. She's been in town for a little more than a month in her official capacity as interim president of Marietta College. Her qualifications and resume indicate that "bench warmer" has never entered her mind.

"She has proven herself as someone who quickly identifies issues and rises to the challenge," according to comments on the college's website from the chair of the Marietta College Board of Trustees, Mary Korn. The trustees see her as a veteran college leader with proven strengths in strategic planning, implementation, enrollment management and fundraising.

The board's goal was to find someone who could have a transformational impact on Marietta while setting the groundwork to ease the transition for the next permanent president when they start sometime in 2024, Korn said.

The kind of transformational impact the trustees seek will be coming, just as soon as Drugovich has a solid understanding of the individuals she works with, the students and alumni at the heart of the enterprise, and the town where she now lives.

The setting and the people in her new town, Marietta, have begun to charm her.

She officially started her Marietta tenure on July 1. And a few days later she went to the July 4 parade and walked over to hear the veteran who spoke afterward, she said. She likes to walk in the city in the evening to unwind.

She already has a cell phone photo of a lounging cat intricately wrapped around the tall pillars of a porch on Fifth Street.

She is amazed by the beauty of the college's Christy Mall, the large, wide, brick-lined pedestrian route between Butler and Putnam streets. She goes a short way outside her office to reach it. "Look at these beautiful plants," she said, spreading her arms at the landscaping. "It almost has a southern feel to it, the plants and foliage. It's so lush."

Drugovich calls herself a "plant person," so she is asked to name her favorite local growing thing that she's seen so far. A second's pause and she said, "Well, I've seen some pretty astounding buckeye trees."

Drugovich's enjoyment extends to the townspeople themselves. She's had enough exposure to them in the past five weeks to make this assessment: "They have a caring and appreciation for this place that really comes through."

But of all the topics and relationships where Drugovich finds delight, it is the joy and excitement of learning that still fuels her energy and determination wherever she goes. Students, she says, "give me hope. They're aspiring to learn, and our job is to lift every one."

That is accomplished in part by maintaining good faculty and nurturing such programs as career services, tutoring, study abroad, athletics and internships, she said.

"Learning in itself is a remarkable process," she said. "The information gained is needed, it's actually the advancement of new learning as well as the source of inspiration."

Does she think the "town" and the "gown," Marietta and Marietta College, suffer from the traditional cultural, educational and financial gap that small towns with colleges have been described as having in the past?

No. She's a bit surprised that description could still be used. She sees it as a remnant of the past, not a mark of the present. For one thing, it's false that only the very well-off can go to Marietta College. She checks the figures, to make sure she is accurate. "The percent of full-time students we have who are on Pell Grants is 35%," she said. "Slightly more than one out of three."

Does she have any ideas on how to make the college and town stronger, better partners who are involved in the day-to-day needs and concerns of both sides?

"Not yet. But I've only been here a month," she says with the same smile she started out with on the "bench warmer" comment. "Give me a little more time."

Background

Margaret Drugovich retired from Hartwick College at Oneonta, N.Y., in 2022 after 14 years as its 10th president.

While there, she developed the Organizing Principle and Strategic Framework that guided decision-making and measured college performance against its strategic goals throughout her tenure. She addressed college affordability by launching a three-year degree program in 2009. That option is available in most Hartwick majors. She also oversaw a record-setting $34.7 million comprehensive campaign that was focused on funding student scholarships, according to biographical information on Marietta College's website.

Other major planning initiatives during her tenure there included a community-led master facilities plan and implementation. She also worked to develop and introduce vehicles that would give essential technical support and advice to the region's growing grain and brewing industries while also generating additional revenues. The results were the Hartwick College Center for Craft Food and Beverage and a soon-to-open Hartwick College Grain Innovation Center.

Drugovich also held administrative roles at Ohio Wesleyan University and Bryant University. She began her career in higher education as a healthcare policy researcher at the Brown University Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research.

She has a doctoral degree from Case Western Reserve University, a master's from Brown University and a bachelor's from Albertus Magnus College.