Gentile is the former Dean of Natural Sciences at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He is an AAAS Fellow, a past editor-in-chief of the journal Mutation Research and recipient of the Alexander Hollaender Award for Research and Education among other national and international awards. He served on the Science Advisory Board for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is a former president of the Environmental Mutagen Society, and is president of the International Association of Environmental Mutagen Societies. He serves on the NRC’s Life Science Board and was program director for grants from HHMI, NSF, NIH and the W.M. Keck Foundation while at Hope College. He earned a bachelor’s degree from St. Mary’s University in Minnesota and his Ph.D. from Illinois State University.
Gentile is flamboyant where Schaefer is quiet; outspoken where Schaefer is subtle; loquacious where Schaefer is brief; and a Grateful Dead fan where Schaefer enjoys symphony. Two very different men, sharing a common goal: the support and advancement of science and education. To provide readers with more information about our new president, we interviewed Jim Gentile. His responses follow:
When were you a student?
I graduated from college in 1968, a real interesting year. I received my Ph.D. in 1974, but I was a miserable student. I was smart, but I wasn’t a good student. I was more interested in the wonderful life of a college student. And then it dawned on me that there were also classes to go to. I didn’t wake up about being a student until almost the middle of my junior year.
And were you studying science at that time?
Yes. As a matter of fact, I got involved in medical school applications and was all set to go in that direction. Then I did undergraduate research and that’s really what woke me up. I enjoyed it and my mentor said, you’d better get serious or you won’t get into graduate school. So the undergraduate research experience showed me the value of studies.
Would you describe any significant experiences or teachers that you remember? Actually, there are two folks I look back on with admiration. One is the undergraduate research faculty mentor I was talking about, Cal McNabb. He approached me about doing a project in freshwater biology of all things. And so I did, and we published a paper. We came up with the find that if you looked at nitrogen and phosphorus loading in the Mississippi River immediately following fertilization, by golly, the river loads went up too. But I think we were among the first people to really understand farm runoff and what might be happening. So that was my undergraduate research and it was neat, especially because I got to water ski between sampling points on the Mississippi River all summer long. But Cal also was one of the first people to give me more than formal advice; he gave me informal advice and I modeled a lot of what I wanted to do in life after him.
A second person that was enormously meaningful in my life was Herman Brockman, my Ph.D. mentor. He taught me what it was like to be a scholar-educator...[he was] very meticulous in his work and it made me very meticulous in my work. But also, he did not look over my shoulder every second; he left me alone…held me responsible, but gave me my independence...the best kind of mentor a person can have. To this day, we are very close friends.
When did you begin thinking about being a scientist? What influenced your decision?
I was always interested in science, but partly because my parents expected me to study science.
Were they scientists?
No. My mother was a homemaker and my father sold tools. But my grandmother ran a nursing home and it was her vision that I was going to become a physician and ultimately take over running the family business, a nursing home in Chicago. She paid my way to school, so I felt this moral obligation. I took science because of her but I was never really interested in being a physician.
So you were just kind of dallying in science, satisfying your grandmother for the first few years .
Absolutely. And, even though I said I was a bad student, as far as taking it seriously goes, I was always good at science.
Were there any world events that took place during your youth that influenced you?
I don't think world events influenced me in my undergraduate career because I was not sure exactly what I was going to do. I applied to Illinois State University to get a master’s degree in science as a holding action against going to Vietnam. And while there I became very interested in many of the issues of saving and preserving the environment, and in the possibility of becoming an ecologist. Then I met Herman Brockman who was a genetic toxicologist and we started talking about the possibility of environmental agents causing cancer. And that sort of related back to my undergraduate research. It wasn’t studying carcinogenesis or biology directly, but rather it was looking at pollution in the environment and the effect that could have on human health. Rather than looking at toxicity in a broad sense, I began looking at markers that came from contact with toxic elements from the environment that might affect genes and cause mutations. And that captured my interest in this broadly environmental, social-conscious, save-the-world movement. I had pretty good mathematical ability so genetics had always appealed to me. And all of a sudden, I saw the marriage of multiple fields; environmental studies/ecology and genetics/toxicology. And so now, I would say I’m a molecular toxicologist who worries about xenobiotic challenges to genomes. How can you insult a genome, what is the effect?
Describe your average day. What is your job on a day-to-day basis?
Being here at RC? I’ve only been in the job for a short time, so people have been taking care of me. The pace is slower than what I’m used to and, while I’m hopeful of growing to appreciate that, what I’ve been doing is increasing my own pace. I’m not good at signing papers all the time and I’m not good at doing detailed paperwork, but I am pretty good at working with people and making connections. So while I am learning the organization, I also am trying to take Research Corporation and all the wonderful things that happen here into my own professional world, which is a little different from the traditional world of RC. I see this foundation as a diamond mine full of wonderful jewels, and an organization that has the opportunity to continue make a difference. But we should not be a secret and my goal is to make the good things we do better known. Thus, I am spending a lot of time on the road and a lot of time bringing the vision of RC to a broad scientific community.
What skills, that are not directly part of your field, have been important or helpful to you?
I enjoy the opportunity to talk before crowds as well as to talk one-on-one with people. I’m a reasonably good listener. I think it’s important to have social skills and I think I’m pretty good at that. I’m not an introvert by any means; I think you need to be a little extroverted to do these kinds of things. I’m a very good writer and I’m a good editor. I am also good at public relations.
What qualities do you think make a person a leader?
A leader is a person that understands that you have to have someone to lead. You have to pay attention to the community you’re asked to serve. You must lead by working on behalf of others and making sure that you sustain a vital community spirit. Keep the community informed all the time and trusting in you all the time. So you’re always going to speak the truth. And ultimately they will be willing to take a risk with you. A leader will never ask anybody to do anything she does not want to do herself, or she hasn’t tried first. I don’t believe in sending scouts out and if they come back wounded, saying, “uh oh.” A leader has to be a person who has the ability to not necessarily rock the boat, but also not allow it to drift aimlessly because life gets too easy.
A leader finds subtle ways to move an organization forward. People talk about two steps forward, one step back, but I don’t believe in that at all. I believe in one step forward and never going back as a more direct way of accomplishing your goals. I believe in retreating if you’re wrong, but not for the sake of comfort. I also think a leader has to think gymnastically, think out of the box, challenge paradigms and listen to people. A leader should have defined principles and goals that are transparent. People don’t have to agree with them, but they must understand them. And a leader has to be persistent.
Who are some leaders you admire?
Max DePree, the former CEO of Herman Miller Corporation, is a great leader. He taught me a lot about leadership. You have to remember Hope College is an institution that comes from a Christian tradition. While I was dean, Max told me, you have to let people go sometimes; you need to do it with Christian compassion but you need to do it. And I translate that as saying you need to make tough choices with compassion and sensitivity, but that doesn’t mean you should avoid the tough choices.
Another person that really helped me understand what it means to be a leader was a person named Paul T. McGee, my postdoctoral mentor. P.T. filled some really significant leadership roles in academics and I watched how he evolved in an academic deanship. I admired the ways he worked and I learned what it means to be a leader in those regards.
Gandhi was a leader. Obviously I never knew the man, but he once said, “There go my people and I must follow for I am their leader.” That spoke a lot to the quiet affirmation of leadership that he had. I am not Gandhi by any means, but he also taught me that, again, if you don't have people with you, and following you, then you aren’t leading anything. Then you’re silly.
I consider Einstein a leader, not because he was a great scientist, which he was, but because of his social consciousness. I respect that. He could have not gone there, but he did. I guess that’s one aspect of leadership: that a leader has a responsibility to go there.
Let me mention two other people who I admire as leaders. I’m embarrassed that they didn’t leap to my mind earlier. One of them was Alexander Hollaender. He was the head of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Life Science unit for many years, and then became president of Associated Universities. Alex was a genetic toxicologist and he asked me if I would be willing, to join a cluster of scientists he had put together to be part of international training teams in genetic toxicology. And so, literally, with two weeks notice sometimes, we would go somewhere and train people in places such as Islamabad, Cairo, Bangkok, Bogota, or Mexico City. Alex used to challenge me to keep going and to do more. And he pushed me to my limits. . . not just me, but a lot of folks.
Well, Alex’s biggest nemesis—but he also loved the guy—was Fritz Sobels. Fritz was the professor who started the genetics laboratory in [University of] Leiden. He was a world-class Drosophila geneticist. Toward the end of his active career, Fritz called me over to the Netherlands and didn’t tell me why until I arrived. I was on his editorial board for the journal [Mutation Research] at that time. He told me he had chosen me to succeed him as editor-in-chief of the journal he founded (that journal). And he transferred leadership when he told me, “ Don’t do what I did; you change it the way you think it ought to go.” That’s very powerful leadership. So these guys are my heroes.
What qualities distinguish successful scientists from less successful scientists?
A successful scientist is someone who is tenaciously living on the fuzzy boundaries of science. A disappointing scientist is a person who merely changes the position of a chlorine residue on a molecule and continuously publishes papers about that. So a successful scientist is the one who is trying to push the boundaries of science. A disappointing scientist is someone who settles. Complacency in science makes a person disappointing—I won't say unsuccessful—it’s just a disappointing use of talent.
What qualities distinguish successful teachers from less successful teachers?
Ah. A successful educator is a person who meets students where they are, understands where they are coming from and what tools they need to foster learning. I think a successful educator understands the difference between learning and the regurgitation of knowledge. And I think a successful teacher learns along with her students in a collaborative way, much like a successful researcher learns along with her students. I think a less successful teacher relies on the presentation of detail instead of intellectual conversation. Courses should be packaged with content not in a prescribed manner, but sort of like the way a phage particle packages DNA. . . or RNA, depending on what kind of phage you are, I guess. It puts in a head-full and that’s all . . . if there’s no more room, there’s no more room. But it does pretty well with the head-full it’s got. I think students are like that; they’re going to get about a head-full in and after some point, it doesn’t matter what else you throw at them, it’s going to bounce off. And a successful teacher recognizes that “glazing point.” However, they will know how to use that head-full of information to advance their own knowledge even further.
What advice would you give a young scientist regarding his or her career?
Have a vision for what you want to do in science; understand the balance of teaching and research you want. Never give up scholarly endeavors, even if the majority of your job is teaching. Remember, you were trained as a researcher; use it. Use it in your research and use it in your teaching. Be confident; don’t be afraid to stub your toe. And never forget the value of your colleagues and peers. No one works in isolation. Be tenacious! Be bold! And be good! You can be a tenacious, bold buffoon and you don’t want to be that. Someone told me that the difference between being an eccentric and being a fool is whether you’re good or not.
What have you not yet done that you plan to do in the near future?
Climb Kilimanjaro.
Are you a climber?
No.
So that’s going to be your first outing?
That’ll be my first outing (although I stood at the base of the mountain once and that is when I first knew I would someday climb it). I mean, I’m sitting here in Tucson and looking at the mountains and they look like a good place to practice. Kilimanjaro is supposedly a walkable mountain, though it’s a treacherous walk. That’s got nothing to do with my professional goals; it’s just something I’d like to do.
I’d like to see RC recognized for the excellence that it achieves. And I’d like to leverage that excellence so that the monies we have available to us can get magnified through partnerships with other organizations to move science to new frontiers. And then, I’d like to fund young faculty to climb those Kilimanjaros. I think that’s the key to RC. I’m not sure I could list the key science questions today, but I am convinced that if you fund wonderfully, aggressively dynamic young faculty, those questions will get addressed and answered.
What do you see in the future for Research Corporation?
I see Research Corporation as a faculty development organization, first and foremost. We need to develop faculty as scholars; we need to develop them as educators. But more importantly, we need to develop them as scholar-educators. That’s the key.
And through what venue do you envision doing that? Do you see that as a grant process?
It’s a grant process in part. I think finding venues to bring promising young scientists together, to talk about issues of career pathing; to talk about issues of education; to talk about ways in which science and education can integrate; to talk about leadership, some of the things RC is already doing. I think it’s our responsibility to find ways of doing that. Research Corporation, and foundations in general, cannot be one-trick ponies. I don’t think we are, but it’s easy for any foundation to fall into a one-trick pony situation because if it works, why not keep doing it? And that makes us the same as the scientist who publishes the revolving chlorine around the molecule, doesn’t it? What we need to do is understand when we need to shift the paradigm a little. And then the foundation has to work with its constituency, saying, “We’re going to be a little bolder, and so are you. Don’t fear, and come with us on this one.” And you ease into those situations.
I think RC can play the leader. I mean, if we decide to fund initiatives in Area x, y or z, that says that x, y or z are important scientific questions to be addressed. That’s changing the face of science because we think it’s worth investing in. When I was a journal editor, we took a hard look at our mission, our scope, and said, “We will no longer encourage papers in these areas. Instead we’re going to encourage papers in those areas.” And over the course of twelve years, you can trace the evolution of the discipline back to some of those decisions. Well, foundations can do the same thing. We can be very powerful. And I think one of the delicate balancing acts for a foundation is, how much do you respond to what the community wants to do and how much do you ask the community to respond to where you expect them to go?
What are your interests/hobbies outside of the sciences?
I’m a sports addict. I will watch or play anything. I have a bit of a passion for contact sports and so I still play basketball with some frequency. I like team sports better than individual sports. I enjoy fishing, and here I am in Arizona! Can you beat it? I enjoy skiing, and here I am in Arizona! But there are airplanes and places to fish and to ski.
I collect folk art and the folk art that I focus on is fishing lures and fishing decoys. So I have a pretty extensive collection of those. I’ve been known to drive eight to ten hours to an auction to buy something. Of course, if you drive ten hours to an auction to buy it, you’re damn well gonna buy it. I enjoy reading. I like speed. I like fast cars.
Who are some of the authors you enjoy?
I like John LeCarre novels, and I have this thing about Steven King novels as well. I’ve also probably read Shakespeare sixteen times, because I just enjoy it (and just had the chance to see Denzel Washington on Broadway in Julias Ceaser)! I read poetry; I’m particularly fond of Billy Collins, Naomi Shihab Nye, Rod McKuen as well as others.
I enjoy rock music and I enjoy the poetry of rock music. I have a book of Robert Hunter’s songs that he wrote for the Grateful Dead because it’s really lyrical poetry in a lot of ways.
Change
in Leadership at Research Corporation