TCNJ

18 FALL 2017 nside a hotel conference room near Newark Airport in the fall of 1998, R. Barbara Gitenstein had just finished a long and grueling interview before the search committee that sought a successor to Harold Eickhoff, then the president of The College of New Jersey. I Welcome mat TCNJ celebrates R. Barbara Gitenstein's inauguration with a cake in the shape of Green Hall. Gitenstein was the executive vice president and provost at Iowa's private Drake University, a veteran academic who had begun her career as an English professor at Central Missouri State University and served her first administrative role as associate provost for the State University of New York–Oswego. When TCNJ's presidency opened up, SUNY–Oswego's former president urged Gitenstein to apply for the job. She did, and now, as she prepared to fly back to Iowa, Gitenstein knew she had made the right decision. She was eager to return to a public college setting and thrilled at the prospect of leading TCNJ. She searched for the nearest pay phone to call her husband, Donald Hart, back in Des Moines. "This is it," she told him. "I could really fit in there." Of course, since January 1, 1999, when Gitenstein began her tenure as TCNJ's first woman president, she has more than fit in. (Today her colleagues know her simply as Bobby; students call her "the Git.") Wielding a leadership style focused on collaboration — "I love giving people credit when they deserve it," she says — Gitenstein has shepherded the college through an unprecedented period of accomplishment. During her 18-year presidency, the curriculum has been overhauled.

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