Elizabeth Burmaster

Did you grow up in Wisconsin, and if not, where?

I was born in Baltimore Maryland, in 1954 and I grew up in the state of Maryland in a town outside Washington D.C. I graduated from high school there. Every summer when I was growing up, my Mom and Dad loaded up all five of their children and we would drive to Wisconsin and spend our summers with our grandparents and all our cousins. I lived in Maryland until age 18 when my parents moved back to Wisconsin where they had grown up, and I came to college to the University of Wisconsin, Madison. That was in the year 1972 and I lived in Madison from 1972 to July of this year, 2009, when I came to Nicolet College in Rhinelander.

 What did you study at the University of Madison?

At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, I first studied music. I was in the School of Music and I majored in music for my bachelors’ degree. My instrument was piano.  After I graduated I taught music. Then, while I was still teaching, I got my Masters degree at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and that degree was in Educational Administration. Then I did graduate work toward a PhD.

 What inspired you to go into those fields?

My mother was a music teacher and she was our church organist.  She just loved music. So I grew up in a family with five children, as I said, and we did a lot of musical things, because of my mother.  And my father too, but he was a scientist. He loved music as well. So I grew up playing the piano, singing, and just loving music so much. In high school I was the accompanist for the choir, and president of the glee club.  It was just a natural thing. In fact, my mother had gone to the University of Wisconsin, Madison School of Music, so for me to go back and go to the same college, and to major in music just as she did, is something I am really proud of.

 After you got your degrees did you continue to be a music teacher, or did you branch out into other things?

I branched out to other things. Even as a music teacher, I realized all students really love to act. So I started to direct musicals. We put on a show in every school where I taught.  Each year, we would put on a musical. And pretty soon, when I got to the high school level, and I was teaching at Madison East High School, we would do our musical every year, and because the school hadn’t had a regular drama director for many years we would do a play.  Students said, “you know, some of us don’t have the musical talent and don’t want to dance or whatever."  So I also became the Drama Director.  That was all fun and interesting and that made me realize that many of the students who I had in drama were so good, and they could memorize lines for a play, or they knew the words for a song, they could get up and perform, they could help other students, and they were all very talented. And then I’d hear that some of them wouldn’t go to any of their other classes. Or that they were failing in other classes. And it just didn’t make any sense to me! I was thinking, how could they be so good in music and drama and be failing in math? Or failing in another subject? So I became really interested in that. That led me into going back and getting a masters degree and asking "if I were the principal of the school, how would I do things differently so those talented students would also be able to do well in other classes, graduate and go on and do other things. So that led me to being a principal. I became certified and then I started into an administrative career.  I was a principal at a middle school, then at an elementary school, then at a really large high school- about 2 thousand students.  I did that for many years, almost ten years at Madison West. And all of those experiences were new, you know, each one a new challenge.   The challenge was to create a culture, an educational culture that really supported success, and supported the potential of students and the potential of the people who worked there. I saw that as a wonderful challenge. Then after a little more than nine years, at the high school level, being a principal, I was asked by some people if I would run for the statewide elected office which is called the State Superintendent. It’s a statewide elected Constitutional Office, nonpartisan - that means you aren’t running as a R or D, Republican or Democrat.  I had never run for any office in my life, but I cared so passionately about public schools, and about education, about every student having a chance, and closing achievement gaps.  I talked to my family, and I said, “well, what do you think? Do you think that we could do that?”  We talked about how it could impact us, and how our life would change, and we decided yes, that we would do it.  So I ran. I was elected, and I served for 4 years, and then was re-elected for another 4 years.  That takes us to June of 2009. Then I started here as president of Nicolet College.

Do you think that it is good advice for all people to not think about where they are going, but to go into something that they are passionate about?

Yes, I could not have said that better.  That’s exactly what my career story and my life story has taught me.  You just put it beautifully.

So how do you like working at Nicolet College so far?

I like it very much. I knew I was really interested after eight years of being state superintendent in getting back with students and I was interested in how education can help economic development. And that’s what the technical college system does and Nicolet does really well.  Nicolet is this wonderful combination of a strong liberal arts college with all the wonderful application and experiential learning of technical degrees and diplomas. I followed my heart and I thought that “wow, that is something I would really find challenging.”

 Do you have any other advice that you could give to students in general, or any advice to women and young girls? 

Yes, never give up. Your path may take a different route, you saw how mine did. Because when I was 15 or 16 I would never had imagined that I would be sitting here.  I never gave up on my believing that if a new challenge was put before me I could do it. You know, I never got every job I applied for, certainly not. But I believed that the right path would show it’s way to me if I followed my heart and I worked really hard. I’ve always been a hard worker, and unafraid of work. And I’ve always asked for help.  I’ve always reached out to others when I was struggling.  I still do that today, like when something seems too complicated. I say “who are the right people to ask for help?” And then I try to seek those people out. So I think those are the things to remember. That life is a journey and journeys aren’t necessarily straight lines.  They can go in lots of different directions, but always try to find the people who you know will be supportive in your journey.

 Of all the different levels that you’ve worked at elementary, middle, high school and now college which one has been your favorite and why?

I have loved each one for its own merits. I really have and now that I’m older and I’m a grandma, I have loved every age of my children and grandchildren.

 What has been the most satisfying part of your work and what has been the most challenging?

 The most satisfying has been the belief that I’ve had since a young girl that people are basically good and that if you reached out to people, you would find great joy in life. That’s a belief that I’ve had since I was pretty young and even though I’m 55 and there have been sad things in my life, there have been disappointments, I still have that belief. Basically I love people, and I learn from people. And I love engaging with people. So that is something I would say I have found satisfying throughout my life. If something made me really sad or a tragic thing happened in my family, I just sustained my belief that life is pretty darn good, that people are blessed to live and to be able to interact with other people. Then I think that the greatest challenge has probably been that I was the first woman principal at the high school I told you about.  I told you I was always a positive person. And I always tried to help others and I always asked for help.  In some instances not everyone was nice or didn’t act nice. I found myself being discouraged.  I thought that person doesn’t think I can do this job, or that person has a stereotype, or was making bets I wouldn’t survive in that job.  That happened more when I was younger. But it was their bias and in some cases they had never had a woman as their supervisor or as the principal. But as I grew older it was more telling about them, than me. It was a challenge for me as I was growing up to  retain my self confidence when people might say, “Oh, you’re not qualified to do that, you can’t do that, you can’t be the principal of that high school. It’s the biggest high school in the state of Wisconsin,” but I said “I think I can do that, and I want to do that.”  I had to overcome the challenge of people who wanted to convince me for their own reasons that I couldn’t do something.

 So it’s to be more true to yourself then what other people think about you?

Yes.  In politics you have to do that because you always have a divided system. Because people are always making decisions and they vote.  They will believe in you or they don’t.  And you can’t go into politics if you say, “oh my gosh, almost half didn’t vote for me.” Usually in politics, especially when you get to statewide elections or presidential elections, you know it’s pretty divided.  If you only thought about the half of the country or the half of the state that didn’t vote for you, you couldn’t operate. You always need to believe you can do the right thing. I was fortunate in my elections.  I was nonpartisan.  I wasn’t running as a democrat or a republican and on the ballot it doesn’t say D or R.  You are judged more on what your values are, what you say you’re going to do.  And to get re-elected, on what you actually do.  That was a positive experience for me in politics. You have to stay true to what you believe the right course is and you need to constantly be learning. Because a lot of people think they’re right.  You must be constantly listening and you must bring new ideas and multiple perspectives and seek out people. The minute I think I know what I’m going to do, I purposefully seek out the opposite opinion and listen to it.

 So all those different viewpoints don’t hinder your decision, they help you see a wider range because if you have an opinion and you’re stuck on it’s harder to get things done because you don’t see the other side of it.

Yes, I truly believe in good leadership or to be effective in the world today you must seek out multiple perspectives. The world is getting smaller because of technology.  In any field in the future you’re going to be interacting throughout the world and you’re going to need to understand all those different perspectives. It is important to get all the opinions and all the perspectives and do that thoughtful hard work of making a decision. That’s much harder than making snap decisions and saying “don’t tell me what I don’t want to hear.”

 So it’s much better to make an educated decision. But doesn’t that also fuel some of the negative talk when you’re taking the time because that people who wouldn’t take that time are going to be getting on your back like. “Do this faster, do this the way we see it”

You’re right. But you have to have a strong backbone.  You have to have people who support you as you are making hard decisions, you never want to surround yourself just with people who think the same way you do.  I believe you have to have a challenge to your thinking so you can make a thoughtful educated decision.

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