Overseer Learned to Manage as Student

Of the many loyal alums who have stayed close to the University over the years, few rival Karen Gordon Mills '75.

From her earliest days growing up in Boston, Mills bled pure Crimson. Her father, former running back Mel J. Gordon '41, instilled the love of Harvard football into his daughter. "We went to every Harvard football game all through high school," she recalls.

Mills graduated from the College, went on to attend Harvard Business School and, after a hiatus from Harvard to pursue her business career, was a Radcliffe trustee from 1985 to 1993. She was elected to the Board of Overseers in 1999.

But Mills says a lot has changed at Harvard since she first arrived on campus.

When Mills came to Harvard in the fall of 1971, the integration of women into College life was just beginning. There was only one woman for every four men at the College; Mills says that ratio was even more skewed in her concentration--economics.

"There were very few women," she says, "but at the time, I didn't feel a difference. It was almost seamlessly integrated. Even though it wasn't perfect, there was a big initial flush of optimism when co-ed housing started to work. Unfortunately, Harvard had a longer way to go than we realized at the time."

The main problem, she says, was that there were few faculty members to whom she could relate. "There were no role models for women," she says. Struggling with her first concentration, government, Mills says she was fortunate to find a teacher who changed her life.

One day, Mills, who lived in Dunster House, ran into Elizabeth Allison, her introductory economics section leader who was also affiliated with the House, in the dining hall.

"[Allison] told me that they needed more women in economics, and asked me if I was happy in my current concentration," Mills says. "I said I was miserable, but I was reluctant to switch because I would need to find a new tutor and advisor. Allison said she would take care of all that, and I went ahead and switched."

Mills says she soon found economics more interesting than the intricacies of political theory.

Although she acknowledges that students face obstacles that hinder direct interaction with professors, Mills believes that others can still have successful experiences similar to hers. "Today, these wonderful interactions do happen," she says. "Some are serendipitous, like mine. Others are intentional, due to the perseverance of the students."

Even before she discovered economics was the right concentration for her, Mills had already been pursuing her interest in business outside the classroom.

"There is no business focus in the undergraduate curriculum," she says. "So, you use extracurricular activities to pursue those interests."

For Mills, that activity was the Harvard Dramatic Club. "I fell into drama freshman year, running the light board," she says. Mills produced several plays, including West Side Story and The Rivals, and eventually rose to be president of the drama group.

It was this managerial experience that convinced Mills to apply to Harvard Business School directly out of college. "At that time, business school wasn't exactly a prestige follow-up to college," she says. After that, she went on to work for General Foods and McKinsey and Co. before founding her own private equity firm, Solera Capital, in 1983.

Since then, Mills has become a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and served as a director on the boards of a half-dozen corporations--from the Scotts Company, a lawn care company, to the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.

Mills found her time at Harvard to be a major asset in the business world, for two reasons.

"The intellectual inquiry that you experience hones all of your skills. You learn how to be in the company of intelligent people," she says. "Being a woman from Harvard gives you a lot of credibility," Mills adds. "People realize that you're smart and you might not be a secretary."

Despite devoting a great deal of her time to her equity firm, Mills has always kept in close contact with the University. As a former Radcliffe trustee and now a member of the Board of Overseers, Mills has watched closely the recent developments at Radcliffe. Instead of sadness that her alma mater has been dissolved, Mills sees an opportunity.

"I don't think that anything has been lost at all," Mills says. "I am very happy to see that the mission of Radcliffe will have a place in the entire University."

Mills views the recent transition not as an issue of integrating or merging Radcliffe. Rather, she says, the continuing challenge is to "encourage Harvard to celebrate and embrace the place of women in the University." She stresses that women have long been a part of Harvard, unlike other Ivy League schools such as Yale or Dartmouth.

"Harvard needs to continue to celebrate the rich heritage that it has," she says. "[The administration] is making good steps, but a bit more embracing needs to be done." For Mills, regardless of the official status of Radcliffe, its tradition should continue to be a constant influence on the University.