Dean Camila Benbow is a scholar of psychology and education, and she has been the dean of Peabody College of Education and Human Development since 1998. With her reappointment as dean extending through 2028, Benbow will become the longest-serving dean in Peabody College’s history with a 30-year tenure. The Hustler interviewed her to discuss her leadership and her goals for the future of Peabody.
The Vanderbilt Hustler: What are your official roles on campus and what do you do on a day-to-day basis?
Benbow: The best way to sum it up is that I’m the CEO of Peabody College. I oversee all the people, all the finances [and] all the programs. Everything you do, it eventually rolls up to me. Everything that Peabody does and all the people at Peabody, that rolls up to me eventually — maybe through others, but it eventually stops at me. Then, of course, I report to the provost.
What led you to Peabody College?
Peabody was just a perfect fit for me because I have always gone between my love for education and working in the reality of schools and people and also my love for psychology. Throughout my career, I was either in an education school or I was in a psychology department. When I was in the psychology department, I missed the realities of working in schools and in education. When I was in education, I missed the theories and the methodological lens of psychology. But at Peabody, we have both. When I got here, it nurtured both sides of me — my love for the theories and the methods of psychology but also my love [for] working with kids, programs and schools and helping them be better. It’s maybe a messy reality, but I really enjoy creating some good out of that messiness.
What have been some of the most rewarding aspects of leading Peabody College?
My work has always been in the area of talent development, and I started working in that area as a senior undergraduate at [Johns] Hopkins. I’ve been working in that area, I hate to admit it, since December of 1976 — a long time. That lens of identifying talents [and] developing their talents has always been the lens that I use to approach my work. Here at Peabody, what I have really loved doing is identifying talents among our faculty, students [and] staff and then helping develop those talents. I really see my role as dean as creating the conditions where excellence can emerge; where our faculty, students and staff can thrive and really do meaningful work — work that is not just meaningful to society, but meaningful to them.
As a dean, what I need to do is to create the conditions and bring the resources that help all the people at Peabody really thrive and do the best work that they can. When you look at the work that Peabody does, it’s about enhancing the human condition. I think that means so much to me that when I’m working with faculty and students and staff in the long run. What we’re trying to accomplish is really enhance the human condition, and really, in particular, kids, and helping kids get a good start in life. It is so meaningful and brings joy to think that maybe, as a result of the work that I do, people here at Peabody get a better start to life.
What are some challenges that you faced while in a leadership position in education? How has it been navigating those?
There are always challenges, and [there are] always ways of finding opportunities to work around the challenges. Sometimes the challenge is just not having enough resources to do the things you want to do, so you have to make choices and make trade offs. There’s always challenges of getting the grant money that you need to do it. It really comes down to [wanting] to create the conditions and the resources for people to thrive, but there never is enough money to do everything you want to do, and you have to make tough decisions. There’s always times when people will do the darndest things, and you end up in my office and you ask, “What were you thinking?” Then you have to figure out how we go forward from that. But we all make mistakes, and the important thing is that it’s not that we’ve made a mistake but how much we learn from our mistakes. Mistakes end up in my office, and those are challenges. But how do we, as individuals, learn from those mistakes, and how does the organization grow? The opportunities are always the people, and the challenges can also be the people.
How has your leadership philosophy evolved over time? How has your leadership response changed with the dawn of artificial intelligence in classrooms, and how has that impacted the educational environment that you’re working in?
I think AI is an example of something that can be an incredible opportunity but can also be a challenge. I think AI is going to change the way we learn and teach, and we have to harness the power of AI. We can’t be afraid of AI. Yes, it can be misused, and there can be problems with using it, but I think we have to figure this out. Years ago, there were debates about whether students should be able to use calculators in their math classroom. I think we settled that debate, and I think we look back now saying how silly that was. Similarly, you have spell check. We didn’t used to have spell check. These are all things that help make our work better, and we’re able to take on more challenging problems. What we have to do is harness the power of AI for good and how it can enhance learning and teaching. That’s the challenge; one of the challenges at Peabody is to be able to harness that power.
Peabody has a strong reputation for leadership, education and human development. What aspects of Vanderbilt’s culture set it apart from other universities and make it unique?
I think [Vanderbilt’s culture] has, very much, a “can do” attitude and a belief in what is possible. While I’ve been here, Vanderbilt has been on this steep trajectory of improvement. Vanderbilt does not look anything like it looked in 1998; it just keeps getting better and better and stronger and stronger. I think that the spirit of this can do [a lot] — this entrepreneurial spirit, this belief that through our work, we can enhance the human condition — whether it’s done in Engineering or Peabody or Arts and Science or any other college. We have a belief that we can contribute to society, and we do it through our outreach programs and so on. Vanderbilt is relevant. It’s ambitious, it’s optimistic and I think that’s a very exciting place to work, and it’s very collaborative. It’s also very civil, and I think [it’s] nice that we can debate issues, but we can do it in a civil way.
What is your long-term vision for the next few years for Peabody College, and what goals do you see as most important for the next decade?
We need to lead in AI,learning and teaching — I think that’s the future. We need to lead; we need to get ahead of our students; we need to get ahead of schools; and we need to anticipate where that’s going to lead and [what it’s going to] bring and really work hard to harness that power of AI. [An] area that we’re working really hard in is social entrepreneurship. The HOD major has developed a new track in social entrepreneurship, and we’re going to be doing some hiring in that area. I find those two things really exciting, and I think I can develop them, so I’m going to focus on that.
There’s also new opportunities that are emerging with this New York campus that we can work on. There’s an endless set of possibilities, but in the end, the final analysis is [that] Peabody has just become so strong over the years, and I want to maintain it. I want to maintain its relevance, and I want to make sure that we are seen as a good neighbor and a good contributor to society. When I came, it was a regional college. Now we’ve become a national college, and the next thing is to take it global. The third thing is — how do we take our work and impact various people, education and human development around the world? We have really moved this college up in terms of the impact of its work and [the next question is of] how we can have that impact globally because today we live in a global society. We cannot just think about the United States. We have to think about our role in the world, and I’d like to see that Peabody is leading the way there, too.
