Businesswoman and former college professor Jane Arnault-Factor, PhD, has been appointed as the president of the Caltech Associates, Caltech's longest-serving support group. Arnault-Factor will lead the board in helping to ensure that the 90-year-old organization continues to fulfill its founders' goals of supporting Caltech as a world leader in science and engineering.
As president, Arnault-Factor will partner with the board and committees to enhance the operation and expand the membership of the Caltech Associates. She will also serve on the Board of Trustees' Institute and Alumni Relations and Campaign committees, as well as on the Board of Governors for the Athenaeum. She brings to this role a professional perspective shaped by 34 years of experience as the founder and CEO of JurEcon, Inc., a nationwide consulting and research firm for management and counsel. Early in her career she was a professor of economics at Rutgers University and the Claremont Colleges. Arnault suceedes Lynda Boone Fetter, who served as the Associates' president the past two years.
This fall, the staff of the Caltech Associates sat down with Arnault-Factor to talk about the organization and her leadership goals. Below are some excerpts from that conversation; for the full story, visit the Caltech Associates.
What surprised you in first learning about the Caltech Associates?
The Associates history was a surprise to me, specifically that its beginnings reached back to 1926 and it was successful right from the start. The founders thought big. Caltech physicist Robert Andrews Millikan won the Nobel Prize in 1923. Pasadena was growing quickly as was the school's reputation in its sciences. To compete for space and resources, Millikan sought "a hundred men in southern California who would be both able and eager to put in a thousand dollars apiece each year for a period of ten years in order to push this enterprise along before it is too late."* Henry Huntington hosted the first formal meeting of the Associates in his home on March 9, 1926. Millikan later said that "there is no date in the history of the California Institute of Technology more significant" than the founding of the Associates.
*From "The Associates of the California Institute of Technology: Patrons of the Century's Science" by Alice Stone, 1991. This monograph tells the story of the growth of Caltech over the years and the role of the Associates in helping to make it possible.
Did your academic background draw you to Caltech?
Sure. I started my career as an academic, and over the past 40 years, my husband, in addition to his day job, has served as an adjunct professor at the USC Law Center and the Straus Institute at Pepperdine. We both wanted to attend every interesting talk we could. We often lack the technical background for a complete understanding, but no matter—the Caltech faculty and researchers are such gifted communicators that even for technically complicated material, we could get the gist of it.
Our alma maters are on the East Coast (Smith College and University of Pennsylvania for me; Harvard College and Yale Law for him), and we sorely missed regular academic involvement. Caltech was a natural fit for us. Initially we were living in outer Malibu, but we decided recently to move to Pasadena, where we would be nearer to friends and family—and to Caltech.
As you begin your new role as Board President, what are you most looking forward to and what do you see as your biggest opportunities for the organization?
The Associates as an organization has raised more than $1.2 billion over the years since its founding. Now, with Caltech's new Break Through campaign goal of $2 billion—which will ensure the ability to explore and innovate for Caltech, its researchers, and the students who represent the future—we look forward to continuing that strong partnership.
The Associates is the main engagement organization for Caltech: it is a portal through which members can enjoy insider access to the Institute's creative faculty and students, be among the first to learn about scientific discoveries and breakthroughs, be part of a dynamic intellectual community, and invest in research that is addressing the world's most complex scientific and societal problems. Our mission is to help raise the visibility of the school, to engage the various communities … to help advance Caltech's most ambitious projects, which could very likely change the world.
I look forward to working with the Associates board, staff, and key partners within Caltech to increase the organization's offerings to our various communities and to increase our membership. We expect, for example, to expand our reach with faculty presentations on the Westside and in Orange County. We also hope to offer more activities with professors, both as day activities and weekend trips. We already offer fabulous longer international trips with faculty, such as recent adventures to CERN in Switzerland, the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and the beautiful region of Andalucía in southern Spain. Together we will continue to develop exciting opportunities to connect Associates with leading researchers at the forefront of their disciplines.
Interviewed by Nicola Wilkins-Miller