How to Run an Institution in an Anti-Institution Era | Better in Person

**Stephen Dubner** (0:00)
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Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner, and this is a bonus episode called How to Run an Institution in an Anti-Institution Era. It comes from our new TV talk show, Better in Person. The guests are Anne Pasternak, director of the Brooklyn Museum, and Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University.
To watch this episode or to watch any episode of Better in Person, go to the Freakonomics YouTube channel or search for Better in Person on Apple podcasts. As always, thanks for listening.

**Michael Roth** (0:48)
I think most people will be surprised to know that I play in a geezer rock band. I just love it.

**Anne Pasternak** (0:55)
That is not surprising. This is Better in Person with Stephen Dubner and Anne Pasternak and Michael Roth.

**Stephen Dubner** (1:06)
What's it like to run an institution in a time when trust in institutions is at an all-time low?
Anne Pasternak and Michael Roth have some thoughts. Anne is director of the Brooklyn Museum. Before that, she ran Creative Time, a provocative public arts group here in New York City. If you've ever seen the annual Tribute in Light Memorial dedicated to the lives lost on September 11th, that was Anne Pasternak's idea. Michael Roth is the president of Wesleyan University. His geezer rock band, by the way, is called the Smokin Lilies.
He's better known as one of the most outspoken university presidents in the US, eager to talk about the political, financial, and cultural pressures that universities are facing. So, I thought it might be a good time to get these two together. First of all, thank you for being here. Have you two met before?

**Michael Roth** (1:59)
No.

**Stephen Dubner** (1:59)
Yeah.

**Michael Roth** (2:00)
It's the first time.

**Stephen Dubner** (2:01)
How was it?

**Anne Pasternak** (2:02)
It was great.

**Michael Roth** (2:04)
I was a little shaky. It's the first time you're going to touch me.

**Anne Pasternak** (2:10)
Well, it was very hard for him because I love bombed him immediately.

**Stephen Dubner** (2:14)
You love bombed him how?

**Anne Pasternak** (2:15)
I love him because I follow his very moral voice in the papers, the opinion pieces he writes for the Times or wherever else, his letters out to the Wesleyan community. I often share it with my leadership team. I've shared his writing with my board.

**Stephen Dubner** (2:30)
You read his letters to the Wesleyan community. Are you part of the Wesleyan community yourself?

**Anne Pasternak** (2:34)
But these things have a way of getting around.

**Stephen Dubner** (2:36)
How would you describe his moral voice?

**Anne Pasternak** (2:39)
Very clear, very principled, courageous, humility. There's a lot of humility.
But also, he knows who he is. He's not hiding behind some fashionable way of being.

**Stephen Dubner** (2:57)
Do you feel that's accurate?

**Michael Roth** (2:59)
Seems too generous to me. Yeah. It's funny the principle part because I've adopted an approach for most of my adult life of principles are bad. Pragmatism is right.
And yet, often people say you're sticking by your principles. And how I see it is I'm sticking by the things I said I believed in, like you shouldn't discriminate against people, that you should have more diversity, that belonging is a good thing. Everybody, any museum director, any university college president would have said that before. And in the last eight months, they seem to have forgotten what they said they believed in, in many cases.

**Stephen Dubner** (3:41)
Tell me a little bit about what it's like to be running an institution like yours right now.

**Anne Pasternak** (3:46)
I think I read in an interview that you said something to the effect of feeling some days like a punching bag. Something like that?

**Michael Roth** (3:53)
It's possible.

**Stephen Dubner** (3:54)
Yeah.

**Anne Pasternak** (3:55)
Sometimes it feels that way, but mostly it feels joyous. You know, it feels in a moment of such social upheaval and divisiveness, purposeful to be able to contribute to public dialogue and to model our beliefs.

**Stephen Dubner** (4:11)
What are people coming to you for? When you think about what the Brooklyn Museum is for in your mind, and how do you provide that?

**Anne Pasternak** (4:17)
I think people are looking at the Brooklyn Museum as a place that really models what its values are.
So for example, we talk about inclusion, but we don't just talk about it, we model it. We're not erasing truths, we're confronting uncomfortable truths, but they're also places of joy. So I think people are looking to the Brooklyn Museum maybe as a place of reality.