Ruth Mitchell Pitts: A personal remembrance
by Gary Marks
Ruth Mitchell Pitts was the administrative director, later associate director, of the Center for European studies from November 1992 to February 2009, sixteen years. I worked with her for thirteen of those years as co-director, then director of the Center.
She came to the Center, at that time it was called the Program in European Studies, in a quarter time position that Konrad Jarausch and I had squeezed from Dean Gillian Cell after she had decided to cut funding. In those days there were many faculty who were concerned with Europe, but almost nothing that could be called European studies, and certainly no UNC funding for workshops, lectures, scholarships or fellowships. Today, the Center has a budget of around one million dollars annually, 85 percent of which it raises from outside the University. The Center has no faculty and a relatively small staff, so it gives the bulk of its funds to students and faculty in the University who develop and communicate ideas on the campus, in the state, and across the world.
Ruth is the person who is most responsible for this. She was, quite simply, the best administrator that I have worked with or even seen working, in any capacity, in any field, in any university. The most efficient, the most enterprising, and the best at hiring talented people and summoning their commitment. Not good, not very good, but the best. Those who know her well, of which there are many here, will know that I’m not exaggerating.
Ruth hated numbers; she boasted that she could not add, and proved it on more than one occasion. She hated negotiating budgets, and she did not like negotiation in general, particularly in formal meetings. Perhaps that is why we worked so well together: I actually liked doing the few things that Ruth did not like doing. Ruth and I worked together on an almost daily basis for ten of those thirteen years, and during the whole period I never had a cross-word with her. Ruth was calm under pressure, and because she was so organized, we were rarely under pressure.
Ruth had a quirky sense of humor that would put people in their place and staunch any personal pride before it raised its head. I remember once returning from an exhausting three day meeting in Los Angeles in which the EU center directors managed to convince the European Commission that the Centers could not really be self-sustaining and would therefore need funding beyond an initial three years. Walking back from lunch in Chapel Hill the next day, a colleague asked us how the meeting had gone. “It went well: Gary had a good time on the beach” was Ruth’s deadpan reply.
Ruth was not one to dwell on compliments – particularly those directed at her. She was indifferent to praise from above, but was generous with praise for those who worked under her. Ruth was not just highly organized and supremely efficient, but like all great administrators, she was a mobilizer. She kindled commitment, so that in times of crisis or deadline, we could count on everyone to share responsibility, to pull together, irrespective of their job descriptions.
I always regarded hiring Ruth as the single best decision that Konrad Jarausch or I ever made, but Ruth had a wonderful knack – it must have been much more than this – for doing the same thing over and over, for hiring people who were not just technically good, but who would also invest their identities in the success of the Center. Ruth actively cultivated individuals who she thought could, at some later date, work in the Center, and I always had complete trust in her judgement on this, as on so many other things.
Ruth’s role in the Center for European Studies increased as the programs that we put in place needed to be administered. She flourished in administering the diverse organization that the Center had become: a masters program like no other in the College, or perhaps in the nation; an undergraduate major; a languages across the curriculum program; a European Union Center of Excellence, and responsibility for its coordination across ten US Centers, and a Title 6 program, which was no longer shared with Duke.
The Center was her professional life and it will always be her legacy.
Two letters:
From Ruth to Gary
September 9, 2003
(Click here to view in PDF)
Dear Gary:
That was a most amazing and unexpected treat on Friday night! I want to thank you for the wonderful wine, but most importantly for the chance you and Konrad gave me ten years ago. Konrad's call offering me the job came on the night of the presidential election returns and I remember being somewhat annoyed to have to leave the exciting sequence of Clinton victories being reported state by state!
I have said it often, but perhaps not to you. This is my dream job! I had a vision of what it could be when you offered me a mere 10 hrs a week, but it has surpassed my own idea of what I wanted.
Thank you for your commitment to the center and for ten years of excitement, frustration (Duke!), speculation, whizzing through budgets, and most of all — pleasure. How many people have a job they look forward to coming in to every day, as I do?
Hoping for another ten expansive years!
Best,
Ruth
From Gary to Ruth
Dear Ruth,
I can't express how sad I am right now -- you are such a part of my life, a close colleague and also a friend for a dozen years. I look back on our years of working together with great fondness and also pride. Fondness that we worked so well together, that we made such a great team. And pride that we (and especially you!) achieved so much. That achievement -- in short, the Center -- is a wonderful and durable thing that will stand the test of time.
Ruth, thank you. Thank you for your hard work and your energy and your consummate skill at inspiring others to bring the best out of themselves. And thank you for the spirit of your work -- your positive attitude, your sense of humor, and your ability to create. You made the Center possible, and in so doing, you made a difference to my life and to the lives of many others who had a chance to study on Europe and study in Europe.
With respect, and love,
Gary