Centennial Oral Histories:
Sally Kornbluth, PhD

Duke University’s Centennial Oral Histories Program includes one-hour videotaped interviews with former and current leaders of Duke University and Duke Health, during which they share memories of their time at Duke and their hopes for Duke’s future. The videos will be archived in Duke’s Archives as a permanent record and enduring legacy from Duke’s 100th anniversary. Subscribe to the podcast to watch or listen to the interviews as they are released.

Sally Kornbluth is a renowned cell biologist. She served as Duke’s first female provost from 2014-2022. Today, she serves as president of MIT. She is interviewed by Dean Mary Klotman, executive vice president for health affairs, dean of the Duke University School of Medicine, and chief academic officer for Duke Health.

Sally Kornbluth, PhD

  • Provost (2014-2022)

Interviewed by

Mary Klotman, MD 

  • Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, Duke University
  • Dean, Duke University School of Medicine
  • Chief Academic Officer, Duke Health

November 27, 2024 · 3:30 p.m.
President’s Lounge, Forlines Building, Duke University

00:00:02:16 – 00:00:20:03

Mary Klotman

Welcome to Duke Centennial oral histories [program]. Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Sally Kornbluth. Sally, you had a 30-year history of Duke before you left us to be president of MIT. And you’ve had multiple roles at Duke. But what brought you to Duke originally?

00:00:20:05 – 00:00:38:19

Sally Kornbluth

Yeah. You know, I came to Duke when I was first an assistant professor. And honestly, I was in the middle of my post-doc. I started to apply. And like everybody I applied to 60-something places because the job market, even then, was somewhat tight. And my husband Danny and I were looking for jobs at the same place.

00:00:38:21 – 00:01:00:22

Sally Kornbluth

And actually, we applied all over and we didn’t tell them that we were married [Klotman: That’s interesting]. And as luck would have it, we had a good number of interviews at the same place. And I remember, because we were interviewing in the — excuse me — Molecular Cancer Biology Department, which doesn’t exist anymore.

00:01:00:22 – 00:01:20:04

Sally Kornbluth

It’s now Pharmacology and Cancer Biology. I came down to interview and I remember this — they seemed to like my interview [and] my application — and they said, “Is there anything that would be a hindrance to you coming to Duke?” And I said, “Well, you know, my husband has also applied.” And they looked, and they looked, and they couldn’t find his application.

00:01:20:07 – 00:01:43:24

Sally Kornbluth

And so they asked him to fax over the application. Fax. So, that also dates us a little bit. This was in 1993. And so we faxed it over, and I remember passing [Duke faculty member Patrick] Pat Casey in the hallway and he said, “We got your husband’s application.” I said, “Yeah?” And he goes, “He’s even better than you are!” [laughs] So, anyway, we were both fortunate to get jobs here.

00:01:43:24 – 00:02:03:24

Sally Kornbluth

And I have to say, there were some other places that offered both of us [positions]. But the people in the department were just incredibly welcoming. And I just also saw the opportunity, not only to have great colleagues, and I was very interested in cancer biology, but also to have great graduate students which was one of our absolute priorities.

00:02:03:27 – 00:02:17:02

Sally Kornbluth

And so it was just a really appealing and attractive offer. And we had a son at the time. We had a daughter [during] my first year as a faculty member. And we moved down here, and it was such a great place, so we stayed for 30 years.

00:02:17:06 – 00:02:19:16

Mary Klotman

You said down here. So, you moved from New York?

00:02:19:18 – 00:02:34:24

Sally Kornbluth

Well, I say down here because I was a graduate student in New York, and I think of myself as a northeastern person. But in actuality, we moved from San Diego. So across, in that case. But to me North Carolina was always, you know, “down there.”

00:02:34:26 – 00:02:40:19

Mary Klotman

So we know you as a leader, but you actually came here as a biomedical scientist. What got you into research?

00:02:40:22 – 00:02:58:25

Sally Kornbluth

It was funny. I was actually a political science major in college at Williams [College] [Klotman: I didn’t know that]. I was forced to take some science courses. And I still remember as a freshman tour guide, I went to the science quad and I said, “Oh, this is a lovely quad. I’m sure I’ll never take a class here.”

00:02:58:28 – 00:03:20:12

Sally Kornbluth

Well, I hadn’t actually looked at the requirements. And so I wound up taking a biology course, and actually it was because someone I was dating was taking that class [laughs]. I had no real thinking behind what [Klotman: As good a reason as any]…as good a reason as any. And I took a human biology and social issues course from someone named [Williams College biology professor] Bill DeWitt, who was just a transformative professor.

00:03:20:14 – 00:03:41:10

Sally Kornbluth

He was a fabulous teacher. And I just got really excited by the biology. And so I decided to take a little bit more, and a little bit more. But I finished my political science major, and I was really fortunate to get a fellowship over to — a scholarship to — Cambridge University in England. Because Williams had a donor that gave them money to send people every year to Cambridge.

00:03:41:15 – 00:03:45:28

Sally Kornbluth

So I went to Cambridge and I did a second bachelor’s degree in genetics.

00:03:46:02 – 00:03:47:03

Mary Klotman

I didn’t know that either.

00:03:47:05 – 00:04:04:22

Sally Kornbluth

Which is actually kind of amusing, because I’m really not a geneticist. In fact, if I had to look across the biological sciences, that’s the one I’m actually least talented at [laughs]. And so after that, we went to — [we meaning] Danny, I met my husband at Cambridge. He was also in genetics. He stayed a geneticist. A very good one.

00:04:04:22 – 00:04:31:00

Sally Kornbluth

And we came to Rockefeller [University] in New York to do our PhDs. And I got really interested in cancer biology. I did my PhD in molecular cancer biology and then went to San Diego for a postdoc where I worked in cell cycle. And then we got recruited to Duke. I had planned to work on a certain aspect of the cell cycle, and I was literally scooped, within like the first two weeks of my faculty position, on my major project.

00:04:31:03 – 00:04:54:09

Sally Kornbluth

And I remember sort of sitting on the couch thinking, “Hm, what am I going to do now?” And I had a rotation student who observed this phenomenon — Eric Evans. We used to make artificial nuclei in the test tube. And I won’t go into the details, but we observed the nuclei fragmenting in a way that was very reminiscent of apoptosis.

00:04:54:11 – 00:05:17:25

Sally Kornbluth

And another one of my colleagues in San Diego had been working on apoptosis in the test tube. In other words, the hallmarks of cell death in the test tube. And I thought, “Well, maybe we’ll work on that. The reconstitution seems robust.” And so we started to work on cell cycle and cell death, out of that. And then we moved beyond the model system to mammalian systems as well, to study both cell cycle and cell death.

00:05:17:25 – 00:05:29:22

Sally Kornbluth

So it was really just kind of serendipitous and a little bit of a product of thinking I wanted to study one thing and finding out that that pathway might be blocked and then…

00:05:29:24 – 00:05:33:01

Mary Klotman

Did you have any idea where it was going to go? So, it was interesting, but. . .

00:05:33:03 – 00:05:50:10

Sally Kornbluth

A little bit. Because it was all predicated on the kind of work I had done as a graduate student. I had been working in the lab of [Rockefeller University faculty member Hidesaburo] Hanafusa. We worked on tyrosine kinase signaling. And it was really about reconstructing signaling pathways. And that’s sort of why I was interested in cell cycle, as well.

00:05:50:10 – 00:06:12:07

Sally Kornbluth

And the field of opoptosis, which is now [producing] like thousands and thousands and thousands of papers a year, was really nascent then. It was very clear that we would have to construct the signaling pathways that lead to cell death in response to a number of different stimuli. We were working in a system derived from Xenopus eggs.

00:06:12:13 – 00:06:35:25

Sally Kornbluth

So we were wondering what triggered cell death in the egg system. And then we found out there was really fundamental machinery that we could extrapolate to other systems as well. So it started really just trying to get a map, if you will, an intricate map of the signaling pathways. And then we started to think about cancer relevance.

00:06:36:01 – 00:06:59:08

Sally Kornbluth

So we started to work on ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, to try to understand why, in cancer, the cell death programs fail [such] that it makes the cells more resistant to cell death, and so you get a greater cell mass as well as increased proliferation. And then we became interested in how cells die in response to chemotherapeutic agents.

00:06:59:10 – 00:07:16:29

Sally Kornbluth

And we also became interested in how the aberrations in metabolism in cancer cells lead to resistance to cell death. And so it was kind of circuitous. But we followed all these signaling pathways [Klotman: So it’s good that you got scooped, it led to a great path].  Exactly, exactly.

00:07:16:29 – 00:07:29:07

Mary Klotman

So you’re more known now for your leadership position. And historically, you were the first and only woman provost at Duke. Did that influence the role that you played at all?

00:07:29:09 – 00:08:03:09

Sally Kornbluth

You know, that’s interesting. I guess because Nan Keohane had been a woman president at Duke, I wasn’t like the first woman in leadership at Duke. And we’ve talked about this before, and we can talk extensively about women’s leadership styles. So, to me, being a leader at a place like Duke, where I had been for such a long time, was really relational. Knowing all the people, knowing who to call. Sort of, in a very high-touch way, really trying to get as much input into every decision.

00:08:03:12 – 00:08:26:29

Sally Kornbluth

And so I think that was driven — I think it tends to be more a woman’s leadership style, but also I think it’s my own personal style. And it’s interesting, I found that a little bit more of a challenge now, going to a place where I don’t know anybody and having to develop those relationships from scratch. Whereas, when I was at Duke, there were people whose kids were in the daycare class of my kids. I didn’t know them — [Klotman: It helps]. 

00:08:27:01 – 00:08:50:11

Sally Kornbluth

Right. I didn’t know them for any professional reasons, but I really knew who to call. And so the other thing about my provost role, though, I think, was having been in the medical school as a vice dean for eight years, and a faculty member, I think it was an unprecedented opportunity to really be able to tap into the expertise in the medical school and have all those cross-collaborations.

00:08:50:11 – 00:09:12:21

Sally Kornbluth

As you know, we work together a lot. And that was also a product of just knowing who to call all the time, and really being sort of fearless across the divide where I think there could have been a feeling of “those people over there” and “us over here.” I never had that feeling because I felt, “Who am I going to call?

00:09:12:21 – 00:09:15:13

Sally Kornbluth

“I’m going to call Scott Gibson.” Or whatever.

00:09:15:20 – 00:09:31:18

Mary Klotman

Well, I appreciate that connection. But the other aspect of your provost job is you took over from somebody — Peter Lange — who had had it for 30 years. That must have been interesting to think about how you were going to have your own provost style. [Editor’s Note: Lange was provost for 15 years.]

00:09:31:21 – 00:10:02:18

Sally Kornbluth

You know, it’s interesting because Peter had been provost for the bulk of my time as a faculty member, a lot of it. And I was on ECAC, the Executive Committee of the Academic Council, when Peter was provost. So I had sort of seen his leadership up close. And truthfully, part of what I think even made me, if you will, sort of eligible to be provost, was I had been on a lot of committees and had a lot of interaction on the campus side. And had a lot of interaction with Peter.

00:10:02:20 – 00:10:27:27

Sally Kornbluth

And so I kind of had a pretty good idea what a provost had to do. The other thing is, I will say [is] that a lot of what Duke is now known for — interdisciplinary work, experiential learning, et cetera. — was really started under Peter. So it was really an incredible foundation. And you’re right, our styles are quite different. But — I don’t think I could do things the way Peter did them, even if I tried.

00:10:27:27 – 00:10:44:14

Sally Kornbluth

I was joking with him once that if I enter a room full of tons of people I don’t know, I’ll just kind of stand and observe. I always felt like if Peter entered a room, like the seas would part, you know? [Laughs] He’s such a big presence. And so we just had different ways of doing things.

00:10:44:14 – 00:11:10:19

Sally Kornbluth

But I think one thing that Peter and I share is the notion that you have to kind of have a sense of humor about the whole thing. Because if not, every day’s blips would drive you crazy. The other thing I think Peter told me, which I think was fundamental to being a happy provost, [was that] you have to be a curious person. Because you spend so much time in meetings with people on so many different things, and if you tune[d] out it would be terrible.

00:11:10:19 – 00:11:30:18

Sally Kornbluth

You have to really find all different kinds of work interesting. So, although I really loved the biomedical research in the medical school, coming over to the campus side and hearing what the [economics] department was doing and what the English department was doing and what the history department was doing — Peter was right, you really had to be super-engaged.

00:11:30:18 – 00:11:49:15

Sally Kornbluth

And I think that was part of his style that I share. The other thing he once told me was that being provost is the art of persuasion. And that is absolutely true. You kind of have to convince — there’s no real power, you have to sort of convince people to do things. Except the power of the checkbook, obviously, which does help.

00:11:49:15 – 00:12:13:18

Sally Kornbluth

So, I think I took that foundation and did things my own way, again, which as I said, was [focused on] getting to know people well, trying to get broad input. I had such a great vice provost team, [and that] made such a huge difference. Jennifer Francis as executive vice provost. Just people I could totally trust and delegate to made it so much easier.

00:12:13:21 – 00:12:25:07

Mary Klotman

Let’s go into some more details about those years, because being a provost is not always easy. So start with some of the challenges that either you were surprised [by] or you just really struggled with.

00:12:25:10 – 00:12:56:06

Sally Kornbluth

I think something I had to learn to navigate that [was] much more pronounced on the campus side [was that] even though I’d been on ECAC, I hadn’t really had a flavor for faculty governance and how decision-making in the context of faculty governance works. So I learned pretty quickly to have, like, the chair of Academic Counsel on speed dial, and really try to work things through. Because there’s something called the Christie Rule here, which is [that] the administration doesn’t make any major decisions without at least consultation with the faculty.

00:12:56:08 – 00:13:17:14

Sally Kornbluth

So, that I really had to get used to. There was consultation in the medical school, but not in quite the same way. So that was something. The other thing is that I was so used to being steeped in a science environment. As you know, the science initiative started as a collaboration between the campus and the medical school, sort of in my time as provost.

00:13:17:16 – 00:13:45:24

Sally Kornbluth

And I really felt it was important to sort of beef up the science. And I was really gratified recently, [in] the Times Higher Education, Duke was number five in interdisciplinary science. And I think all that groundwork that we laid between the medical school and the campus — that really, really paid off. So just kind of working in a different environment there, like how do you get people to really be aggressive for things like NIH grants.

00:13:45:24 – 00:14:05:23

Sally Kornbluth

It’s just a very different mentality. And I think I really had to kind of adapt to that. And also just kind of think about learning enough of the different fields to be able to do things like weigh in on tenure cases, and really try to understand.

00:14:05:23 – 00:14:30:18

Sally Kornbluth

So I remember I was at a tenure case for the Sanford School of Public Policy. You would look at publications and, you know, they were fine. But the person that had a huge impact on actual policy in Washington — This is a very different consideration. So, learning how to navigate that was something new to me.

00:14:30:20 – 00:14:33:27

Sally Kornbluth

But it was pretty fun, I have to say.

00:14:34:00 – 00:14:41:16

Mary Klotman

You mentioned faculty governance. Talk a little bit about how important that is in these roles to really understand faculty governance. 

00:14:41:18 – 00:15:02:20

Sally Kornbluth

It’s interesting because every place has a little bit of a different model of faculty governance. And it’s funny because at MIT, the faculty meetings are faculty as the whole. There’s not [something] like a faculty senate. Here, the Academic Council, in terms of serving as a faculty senate — here’s one example.

00:15:02:20 – 00:15:24:05

Sally Kornbluth

I go back to DKU — Duke Kunshan University — and getting DKU through. Back [in the] time a little bit before DKU was being established, Yale-NUS was being established, which it doesn’t exist anymore. And I believe that there was a really different sort of process there and faculty reaction.

00:15:24:05 – 00:15:47:14

Sally Kornbluth

And I think we felt that unless we got deep faculty buy-in for DKU, we were never going to get it off the ground. And I remember when I became provost, [then-President] Dick Brodhead said to me, “You’re really going to have to focus on figuring out how to get an undergraduate degree at DKU through and approved by the faculty.” And at Duke, that really means getting approval by Academic Council.

00:15:47:17 – 00:16:06:19

Sally Kornbluth

And I spent two years going to every department and talking about DKU and the potential benefits. And honestly when the vote came, I felt a little bit like a Senate whip. I know almost how [crosstalk, laughs]… Yeah, I did. I had a picture on my door of every member of Academic Council.

00:16:06:27 – 00:16:27:04

Sally Kornbluth

I sort of had a sense [where the votes were]. Now, I have to say, there were members of the Duke community that really carried the water. When it came to the Academic Council meetings, there were people that stood up and made very compelling comments.  [Political science faculty member] Melanie Manion comes to mind, [physics faculty member] Steffan Bass. People who really spoke — and times have changed,

00:16:27:04 – 00:16:47:17

Sally Kornbluth

so I wouldn’t hold them to everything they said then. But I think it was really important, and accurate at the time, that people understood why DKU was going to be important in the world. But I remember, it had to be a partner[ship] with faculty governance, because we have faculty that go over there and teach, and they offer a Duke degree.

00:16:47:19 – 00:17:14:12

Sally Kornbluth

So it was so important to have the imprimatur of the faculty. And during [the] Covid [pandemic], we had to work really closely with faculty governance on when classes were going back into session, were our rules reasonable, were our disciplinary processes reasonable. And I think honestly, it’s a little bit like — ECAC always felt to me a little bit like a “team of rivals” in that everybody wanted the same goal.

00:17:14:14 – 00:17:41:10

Sally Kornbluth

And it was a healthy level of disagreement and argument and discussion. Duke faculty governance I think was very healthy. It never really felt contentious. It just felt like we had to argue and work it through [Klotman: Real debate.] Real debate. And we didn’t always agree, but I really felt like all the academic council chairs I worked with wanted the best for Duke and tried to be as responsive as possible.

00:17:41:13 – 00:18:04:13

Sally Kornbluth

And that ECAC had a really kind of healthy — again, argument, but in a very collegial way, culture. And the full Academic Council [would] then rely a lot on how ECAC reported out and what they supported in order to have further discussion. So I think it’s a very robust and very healthy process.

00:18:04:15 – 00:18:11:19

Mary Klotman

Obviously that decision to go to DKU, and Duke-NUS [Medical School], has really established us as a global entity. So, it’s really important.

00:18:11:22 – 00:18:26:26

Sally Kornbluth

Absolutely. I just got back from Singapore on MIT business, but everybody knows Duke-NUS. And the folks I met had involvement at Duke-NUS. I mean, it’s been so incredible.

00:18:26:29 – 00:18:32:29

Mary Klotman

But I think you learned, and certainly in my involvement with Duke-NUS, I’m learning that establishing the relationships, laying the groundwork…

00:18:33:06 – 00:18:34:10

Sally Kornbluth

[Crosstalk]

00:18:34:13 – 00:18:39:26

Mary Klotman

Being able to articulate the reason for doing it is really important to the long-term success.

00:18:39:26 – 00:18:41:21

Sally Kornbluth

Exactly, exactly.

00:18:41:24 – 00:18:47:04

Mary Klotman

So that was a success. We had lots of challenges the years you were provost because we had [the] Covid [pandemic].

00:18:47:06 – 00:19:08:14

Sally Kornbluth

Yeah. That was crazy. I think back on that — as you know when I was in the medical school, there were some challenges too with famous cases, et cetera, that we won’t go into. But this was a different order because it affected everybody. And in some cases, I hate to exaggerate, but it felt like life and death.

00:19:08:14 – 00:19:34:03

Sally Kornbluth

I mean, people could die from it. And we had students who were immunocompromised and faculty who were immunocompromised who we had to really think about. And at the same time, think about the educational goals for the institution. And I felt like it was so important to get people back in the classroom. And I honestly think Duke was one of the best institutions at navigating this.

00:19:34:05 – 00:19:59:00

Sally Kornbluth

Ironically, MIT is one of the other places that went to a high level of testing. And I think that that was set up here really well because of the [Duke Human] Vaccine Institute and [COO Thomas] Tom Denny and colleagues [who] really knew how to do it. So going to pool testing. And I remember talking to [Duke President] Vince [Price] at the time and saying, “We really just need to do tons of asymptomatic testing.”

00:19:59:00 – 00:20:19:15

Sally Kornbluth

And he was like, “I think you’re right.” And [people like Vice President for Administration] Kyle Cavanaugh, they just made this hum. There were [around] 15 testing stations all over Duke. It was just an extraordinary effort. The team met every day. And I remember, I got into needlepoint during the pandemic, just like some [other] people.

00:20:19:18 – 00:20:35:22

Sally Kornbluth

And I remember I made [Duke Chief Communications Officer and Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Relations] Mike Schoenfeld a needlepoint thing that said “Survive and Advance” that had the Blue Devil with a hypodermic needle and the whole thing [laughs]. And as a team, we really did – we just survived and advanced every day.

00:20:35:24 – 00:20:38:18

Mary Klotman

It was a real demonstration of that collaborative culture that we talk about, but we had to do it.

00:20:38:18 – 00:21:02:18

Sally Kornbluth

Absolutely. That’s right. I remember calling [Vice Dean for Basic Science] Colin Duckett all the time, [and asking] “What’s happening at the Vaccine Institute? How do we coordinate this?” And I think it really was [that] the medical school really stepped up. And the other thing is the student life process really worked well. Getting the students to really participate in an important way.

00:21:02:21 – 00:21:06:08

Mary Klotman

So what would you say are the things you’re proudest of in your role as provost at Duke?

00:21:06:08 – 00:21:37:16

Sally Kornbluth

So part of it honestly is just the team that was built. Many of whom are still here like [Vice Provost and Vice President of Student Affairs] Mary Pat McMahon and [Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies] Ed Balleisen. All these folks who are just so extraordinary. But the Science Initiative is one. And that actually was preceded by the Quantitative Initiative, which was really about getting more quantitative people into life sciences, but also getting more computational people overall. People interested in AI, et cetera.

00:21:37:18 – 00:22:06:00

Sally Kornbluth

So that sort of was the first entree. But there’s a lot of things. The interdisciplinary landscape, whether it be Data+ or all the other “pluses” that followed, I think really expanded during that time. We had a program — I don’t think it’s still running — called Spring Breakthrough that was fun for a few years, which was like short spring break courses that were without grades, without stress, that I think was really interesting and fun to do.

00:22:06:02 – 00:22:28:17

Sally Kornbluth

I just feel like we really thought intentionally about how to make the education better and better. And I really think Duke undergraduate is one of, if not the premier place, for undergraduate education at this point because of all the thinking on interdisciplinary learning and, again, experiential learning. And so that I think was great.

00:22:28:17 – 00:22:47:04

Sally Kornbluth

And we continued to build the research base. So I feel like it was a very sort of golden [and] collegial time. We used to — before Covid — we felt like a peacetime economy [laughs]. Things were going well.

00:22:47:05 – 00:22:53:18

Mary Klotman

We didn’t know it, but it was really quite peaceful at the time. But Duke Science and Technology I think is going to be seen as a really important investment.

00:22:53:18 – 00:22:56:05

Sally Kornbluth

I think so. I think so.

00:22:56:06 – 00:22:58:27

Mary Klotman

Why did you see it as such an important thing to invest in?

00:22:58:29 – 00:23:20:10

Sally Kornbluth

Because I felt like the students coming in had a variety of interests, but we did have a lot of students interested in STEM coming on the campus side. Duke’s been known for a long time for its humanities and social sciences. And I felt [that] aside from the medical school, the tilt was a little stronger than it should be. That we needed a counterweight.

00:23:20:14 – 00:23:44:02

Sally Kornbluth

We needed to beef up the — now, there were some great people here. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like we didn’t have great people. We needed more. We needed to be able to do a real group hiring and bring in a strong cohort. And we’re really lucky that the Duke Endowment was willing to partner with us to really make that possible.

00:23:44:05 – 00:24:13:08

Sally Kornbluth

The other thing I’ll say, [when you ask about] things I’m proud [of] is we really worked on diversity of the faculty when I was provost. And we hired a large number of underrepresented faculty in the years that I was provost. That really made a difference. In partnership with [Dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences] Valerie Ashby, in partnership with some of the other deans. It really, I think, paved the way to a really much more diverse environment overall that I think has benefited Duke.

00:24:13:10 – 00:24:15:26

Mary Klotman

Absolutely. So you got a lot done those years.

00:24:16:01 – 00:24:20:22

Sally Kornbluth

We did. We did. It was fun. I liked being provost.

00:24:20:24 – 00:24:24:00

Mary Klotman

I assume that was a job you’d recommend for other folks to consider?

00:24:24:00 – 00:24:29:25

Sally Kornbluth

Absolutely. As long as you like to answer huge volumes of email all the time [laughs].

00:24:29:28 – 00:24:40:12

Mary Klotman

When you think about your leadership style — you mentioned a little bit that you’re relational, you love to really establish those relationships. What are some of the other aspects of your leadership style?

00:24:40:14 – 00:24:58:02

Sally Kornbluth

I mean, I do think I like to take in a lot of input. And I really like to think out loud. Which can sometimes unnerve people. Because I’ll say something and then they’ll say, “Okay, I’ll do that.” I’m like, “No, no, no, I didn’t mean for you to do that. I’m just talking.” I have to think out loud.

00:24:58:05 – 00:25:19:12

Sally Kornbluth

I think that’s a big part of it. Probably, if I had to say, it’s a plus and a minus in my style. It can be a minus — I don’t have that kind of large and in charge persona. And there are times that people want that, and I really have to work on that sort of, presence kind of thing.

00:25:19:12 – 00:25:43:25

Sally Kornbluth

I think also people talk a lot about vision. I think the strategic planning process I led at Duke with [faculty member] Susan Lozier — who’s actually now at Georgia Tech, but she was the faculty chair of it — we consulted. We had 50 dinners of faculty. And the vision was really kind of making the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

00:25:43:28 – 00:26:17:14

Sally Kornbluth

And so I think one of my strengths is synthetic. It’s not just pulling ideas out of thin air. It’s really identifying the emergent ideas. And I’m trying to replicate that aspect a little bit at MIT now, trying to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts, which are strong. And I feel like all of the initiatives we did at Duke — I mean, the name of the strategic plan was Together Duke, because it was really about how do we harness all these talents and do something better?

00:26:17:14 – 00:26:28:24

Sally Kornbluth

And so when people ask me about my vision, I have a landscape and can see where our strengths are and really capitalize on them. See where the gaps are and try to fill in those gaps.

00:26:28:27 – 00:26:41:27

Mary Klotman

Well, when I think of your leadership — and you put it together that you’re synthetic and you also think out loud. I would say what you really signal to other folks is you want to hear what they have to say and are interested in what they have to say.

00:26:41:28 – 00:26:57:05

Sally Kornbluth

Absolutely. Because there’s a lot of smart people around here that have a lot of good ideas. Occasionally, I’d have a flash of insight. But a lot of other people did, too. 

00:26:57:12 – 00:27:02:06

Mary Klotman

But you engaged, and really capitalized on all of the different views in the room. And that’s diversity.

00:27:02:07 – 00:27:05:00

Sally Kornbluth

I appreciate that.

00:27:05:02 – 00:27:13:09

Mary Klotman

So when you look back at Duke, where do you think Duke as an institution is going?

00:27:13:11 – 00:27:41:10

Sally Kornbluth

I think Duke’s on an incredible upward trajectory. I mean, I don’t place a huge stock in rankings, but it’s still nice to see that Duke is in a great position in all the various rankings. I do think we’re going to see the fruits of DST [Duke Science and Technology] here. Namely, that a lot of the people that were hired in the last five years are coming into the really big years of their career.

00:27:41:17 – 00:28:02:26

Sally Kornbluth

And I think you’re going to see a lot of interesting interdisciplinary science. I do think that the medical school plays a lot bigger role in sort of the overall thinking of the university, in the sense that there are so many collaborations now between the medical school and the campus. I think you’re going to continue to see that.

00:28:02:28 – 00:28:26:05

Sally Kornbluth

And as I said, the undergraduate education. All the time when I talk to people here, there’s always some new innovation. I mean, even something that goes back a long time, like the FOCUS program is continuing to evolve and just really setting an example for a lot of other places on how you innovate in education.

00:28:26:05 – 00:28:30:10

Sally Kornbluth

So I think that sky’s the limit here.

00:28:30:12 – 00:28:33:04

Mary Klotman

And have you taken some of Duke to MIT?

00:28:33:06 – 00:28:53:29

Sally Kornbluth

Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. I’ve started a number of interdisciplinary efforts. One in the life sciences, one in AI, one we call MITHIC, which is the MIT — I’m going to get it wrong — Human Insight Collaborative, which is really about bringing the human in. It’s fun. It’s like the opposite problem of Duke, right?

00:28:53:29 – 00:29:17:10

Sally Kornbluth

There, STEM dominates. So how do you bring the humanities and social sciences more into the center of the institute? And the students who come to MIT are just — I mean, 97% of the students major in STEM. So it’s not like I’m trying to make a bunch of humanities majors. But I really want humanities in the social sciences to more firmly inform the education at MIT.

00:29:17:13 – 00:29:45:08

Sally Kornbluth

All of the technologies that we’re coming up with have social and human dimensions. The guardrails of AI, novel genetic engineering methodologies, what are the ethical implications of human use? We do a lot of work that has potentially dual use applications. So what are the ethical lenses? Making sure our students understand that, making sure that they’re really good writers, and et cetera.

00:29:45:08 – 00:30:12:18

Sally Kornbluth

So we’re trying to do that through a lot more collaboration. So we have a new program of collaboration, for instance, between engineering and science and the humanities departments. One thing I learned at Duke is the best way to get novel collaborations and to get things moving is seed money for programs [Klotman: Yes, a little seed money goes a long way]. And we did a whole bunch of things, as you know – from vouchers in the core facilities to seed money for interdisciplinary collaborations.

00:30:12:23 – 00:30:35:23

Sally Kornbluth

So we’re deploying some of that at MIT now. And because we don’t have a hospital, we’re also putting seed money into collaboration, for instance with MGB — Mass General Brigham — to try to bring those kinds of dimensions that I saw were so productive at Duke across institutions, even if we don’t have it within the same institution.

00:30:35:26 – 00:30:45:19

Sally Kornbluth

It’s funny, I talk about a faculty senate there. And I get a kind of mixed response. You know, some people think it’s a great idea. Some people think it’s a really terrible idea. So we’ll see how that goes.

00:30:45:21 – 00:30:51:09

Mary Klotman

Well, I went to your inauguration, and you talked about climate change. And as you know, that is a major initiative here at Duke.

00:30:51:12 – 00:30:52:20

Sally Kornbluth

Yes.

00:30:52:23 – 00:30:58:03

Mary Klotman

When you think of universities, where do you think they play a role in climate change?

00:30:58:07 – 00:31:18:00

Sally Kornbluth

Well I have to say, and I should have mentioned this because it’s really the flagship initiative. It’s a little bit different from these interdisciplinary collaborations, it’s interdisciplinary across the whole institution. So, the thing that MIT has is unbelievable technical depth. So a third of the faculty are already working on something to do with climate.

00:31:18:03 – 00:31:27:08

Sally Kornbluth

And again, it was this notion of what we talked about at Duke, which is how do you harness the collective to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. 

00:31:27:11 – 00:31:28:15

Mary Klotman

And what bigger challenge requires that kind of multi-disciplinary approach?

00:31:28:17 – 00:31:50:18

Sally Kornbluth

Exactly. I mean, we have a nuclear reactor at MIT. We have fusion, we have fission, we have geothermal, et cetera. And so we can pull together in a way that, I think, is somewhat unique in terms of just technical depth. Now at Duke, there’s huge depth in climate policy.

00:31:50:21 – 00:32:16:04

Sally Kornbluth

And so these kinds of expertises are complementary. I mean, we are starting a climate policy center at MIT, but it’s a little different because it really reflects the sort of technological depth at MIT. And so I think universities are going to continue to have to really innovate in this space, particularly because the political environment is going to be complicated.

00:32:16:29 – 00:32:21:16

Mary Klotman

And students want us to totally take this as a major initiative.

00:32:21:17 – 00:32:30:16

Sally Kornbluth

Totally. I got a letter from almost 500 undergraduates saying they really want to be involved in climate work. So I think it’s going to be really critical.

00:32:30:19 – 00:32:46:04

Mary Klotman

So I’d like to end by talking about students. Because in the end universities are really about higher education. And you played a big role in the student, sort of, life at Duke. How do you feel like you impacted the student life at Duke?

00:32:46:06 – 00:33:09:21

Sally Kornbluth

Yeah, that’s really interesting. I think it started back, honestly, when I was a vice dean in the medical school. In fact, one of my biggest motivations to get into administration was to impact the graduate education. And I think we got more and more sort of attuned to selecting the students that would really be super successful as graduate students.

00:33:09:21 – 00:33:35:21

Sally Kornbluth

We had this Chancellor’s Scholars program where we brought in the most talented students together to recruit. And most of my personal student interactions were with graduate students, not undergraduates, because I was in the medical school, I had 31 PhD students over my time, and they’re all in great academic places. And so to me, the biggest part of my educational impact, personally, was the individuals.

00:33:35:21 – 00:33:57:23

Sally Kornbluth

But in terms of the students overall, I think we worked really hard on not only the educational piece, but on student culture. I think of Quad X and all of the work that Mary Pat has done — and [Dean of the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences and former Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education] Gary Bennett — to get launched a really kind of more [of a] feeling of a residential learning environment.

00:33:57:25 – 00:34:27:00

Sally Kornbluth

I think [this] really has made Duke an even better place for students to come find a home, no matter what their interests are, and really have the opportunity to dive deeply into all different kinds of intellectual areas. So I just think it’s a really fun and enriching place for undergraduates to be because they get sort of the best of the intellectual but a lot of thought —

00:34:27:00 – 00:34:50:05

Sally Kornbluth

a fantastic student life operation, into what students need for wellness. And how students can – how their interactions can be facilitated so that when they go out into the world, they know not only the academics but they really have learned about talking across differences and how to live in complex environments, et cetera.

00:34:50:05 – 00:34:52:06

Sally Kornbluth

And I think Duke does that really well.

00:34:52:08 – 00:35:00:11

Mary Klotman

So I remember one of the initiatives you led us, as deans of the schools through thinking [about], is Duke 2030.

00:35:00:13 – 00:35:02:07

Sally Kornbluth

Right, right.

00:35:02:10 – 00:35:08:12

Mary Klotman

What were your thoughts there in terms of where we were going to go in that period of time?

00:35:08:14 – 00:35:39:03

Sally Kornbluth

That’s really interesting. I was very focused at the time on the science piece – thinking about where we were going there. And so at the time, I guess 2030 seemed a little far away. [Crosstalk] So I think we’re seeing sort of the immediate — the fruits of all that planning, as I was saying, in the push towards interdisciplinary science, in the changes in the educational process.

00:35:39:06 – 00:35:44:06

Sally Kornbluth

Now when we talk about long-term planning, we’re talking about 2050.

00:35:44:09 – 00:35:45:12

Mary Klotman

Yes.

00:35:45:14 – 00:35:49:18

Sally Kornbluth

[By which time] I will be retired. If I’m alive, I will be retired.

00:35:49:18 – 00:35:59:29

Mary Klotman

And one of the aspects I remember about the thinking of [the] 2030 [initiative] was continuing to enrich the student experience in scholarship and research as an individual —

00:35:59:29 – 00:36:01:05

Sally Kornbluth

Exactly.

00:36:01:08 – 00:36:02:25

Mary Klotman

— sort of initiative.

00:36:02:26 – 00:36:26:04

Sally Kornbluth

Yes. And I do think this is somewhere that Duke could do even more. I don’t know what the statistics are now, but at the time I was provost, it was about 50% to 60% of students [who were] engaged in research. I think it could be 80% or 90%. It doesn’t all have to be laboratory research. [It can be] humanities research or social sciences research. But I think it really provides an important dimension to the education.

00:36:26:09 – 00:36:47:17

Sally Kornbluth

Even if students don’t want to go on to graduate school or have research as part of their lives going forward. I just think learning to ask complex questions and figure out how to answer them is important. I remember, one of my sort of “aha” moments when I was provost that I hadn’t fully appreciated when I was in the medical school was I went to this, 

00:36:47:22 – 00:37:07:15

Sally Kornbluth

there was a symposium on slavery that [faculty member] Thavolia Glymph in the history department was leading. And the different speakers were talking about how they basically stitched together the historical case using the archives. Whether it be the Duke archives, or their own universities, or national archives. They were really thinking about how they chased down the evidence.

00:37:07:17 – 00:37:28:28

Sally Kornbluth

You know, as a scientist, I had never really thought about the history in that way. And I think if I had appreciated that as a student, who knows, I might have been a historian or a political scientist. I liked biology, because I liked understanding the evidence and thinking about what the synthesis of that is, and how you create knowledge and create a case.

00:37:29:00 – 00:37:44:22

Sally Kornbluth

And I think if students appreciate the research aspect, and not just going to class and learning about history or learning about political science. That research element really sets them off on a completely different train of thinking.

00:37:44:24 – 00:37:52:20

Mary Klotman

This is a tough question. You worked for two presidents. Dick Brodhead, Vince Price. Thoughts?

00:37:52:22 – 00:38:11:26

Sally Kornbluth

[Laughs] Well, I loved working for Dick, and I loved working for Vince. It was great. It was a little different because with Dick I was brand new. It was a little bit like — I think we worked together great — but I felt like I was learning at the feet of the master a little bit.

00:38:11:26 – 00:38:36:27

Sally Kornbluth

He was at the very end of his presidency. And so, I was really looking for his wisdom. And I always felt a little bit like I had to prove myself. And not that he was judgmental or punitive or anything. I just felt like here is somebody who had just been in it for such a long time and [knew] exactly how things should proceed.

00:38:37:04 – 00:39:04:23

Sally Kornbluth

Now, to Dick’s credit and also Vince’s, they both were really good at not micromanaging and not delegating — I mean, and delegating. And so, I never felt like somebody was looking over my shoulder. But with Dick, I really felt like, “Okay, am I doing the right thing?” And I was really lucky because Richard Riddell, who was his chief of staff and secretary of the board — I was in Richard’s office like 100 times a day because I didn’t really know what I was doing.

00:39:04:29 – 00:39:24:14

Sally Kornbluth

Or sometimes Dick would say something and I’d be like, “I don’t know what he said. Can you explain this?” By the time Vince came, I was three years in. And Vince was also a provost at Penn. So it was a partnership in the sense that I think we had a much more common experience.

00:39:24:16 – 00:39:44:12

Sally Kornbluth

And I felt — there was a lot of dialogue all the time — but I felt a little bit more like we’re coming from the same place kind of thing. And Vince, again, he trusted me to do things. He had been a provost. He wanted to be a president. You what I mean?

00:39:44:12 – 00:40:01:22

Sally Kornbluth

And that distinction. So they were both different. But I felt well-guided and well-treated, et cetera. And felt like part of a team. So it was good, in both cases.

00:40:01:22 – 00:40:03:27

Mary Klotman

And a little bit about your team.

00:40:05:00 – 00:40:05:10

Mary Klotman

I know Jennifer…

00:40:05:11 – 00:40:26:07

Sally Kornbluth

Oh, I have to say I had such a great team at Duke [Klotman: You really did]. I really did. And we built it over quite some time. And those people, like Gary Bennett, who I hired as the vice provost for undergraduate studies, is now the dean of arts and sciences. I mean, some of these people have continued to contribute to Duke.

00:40:26:10 – 00:40:46:06

Sally Kornbluth

[Klotman: Valerie Ashby]. Valerie Ashby went on to be president of [University of] Maryland, Baltimore County. And the deans. [Vinik Dean of the Pratt School of Engineering] Ravi [Bellamkonda] has gone on — there’s a lot of people who developed in a great team that have now gone on to other things. But we all stay in touch still.

00:40:46:06 – 00:41:08:09

Sally Kornbluth

And it was just a really great moment. There was incredible collegiality, and I really, really liked that. And also the president’s cabinet. People like [Vice President for Institutional Equity and Chief Diversity Officer Kimberly] Kim Hewitt, people like [Vice President for Durham & Community Affairs] Stelfanie [Williams] et cetera. We really just had a great interaction. [Vice President and General Counsel Pamela] Pam Bernard, [was there] at the time. And so now that I’m in a different institution, I really like my team members,

00:41:08:09 – 00:41:26:11

Sally Kornbluth

but it takes time to build that close rapport and to really get to know people. Particularly, I’ve made a few hires. I hired a wonderful chief of staff. I’ve just hired a VPR. And so over time — some people will stay who were originally part of the team. There obviously will just by nature be some turnover.

00:41:26:14 – 00:41:49:22

Sally Kornbluth

But it’s really creating a culture. They have to get used to my leadership style. [Such as] thinking out loud. [For example saying], “Okay, I’m just talking, folks. Don’t write anything, I’m just talking.” And so they just have to get used to a different way of doing things. I mean, my predecessor had been provost for eight years and then president for ten years at MIT.

00:41:49:24 – 00:42:00:20

Sally Kornbluth

I like him very much, but our styles are not similar. And so just getting used to those differences I think has been interesting. 

00:42:00:20 – 00:42:06:17

Mary Klotman

I don’t know if you remember, but when I became dean, there was a moment in time where eight of the nine deans were women.

00:42:06:20 – 00:42:08:02

Sally Kornbluth

Yes.

00:42:08:03 – 00:42:08:24

Mary Klotman

Which was quite unusual for Duke.

00:42:08:29 – 00:42:17:20

Sally Kornbluth

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And we didn’t set out to do that. [It was a] “may the best person win” kind of thing.

00:42:17:20 – 00:42:22:24

Mary Klotman

I asked you, I said, “How did that happen?” And you said you just chose the excellent candidates.

00:42:22:27 – 00:42:45:08

Sally Kornbluth

Exactly. And so it wound up that way. And again, I just kind of look at that time as a really interesting moment in time. Institutions keep evolving, and some of the folks have moved on. But it was such a fun time and such a fun group.

00:42:45:10 – 00:42:49:10

Mary Klotman

And you made it fun for us to lead. Of course it helps when you don’t have a crisis.

00:42:49:10 – 00:42:51:23

Sally Kornbluth

Yeah. No crises. Exactly, exactly.

00:42:51:27 – 00:42:54:19

Mary Klotman

Well, Sally, thank you so much for this conversation today and thanks for all you’ve done for Duke.

00:42:54:19 – 00:42:56:12

Sally Kornbluth

Absolutely, thank you.