An Interview with Carol Wood

When many people think of the University of Virginia, they think of Thomas Jefferson. But, if you’re a journalist looking for a story about the goings-on “on Grounds,” then the first person you’d call would be Carol Wood. Considered by many to be the public face of U.Va., Carol, who serves as U.Va.’s Associate Vice President for Public Affairs,  is known throughout Charlottesville as a person whose commitment and passion for the University, its traditions, and the people who make up its community, are unparalleled. Yet, while Carol continues to be noticed at the University of Virginia for her work, recently being selected as the 2011 Elizabeth Zintl Leadership Award recipient, her work before her tenure in Charlottesville—her decades-long career as a journalist at The Virginian-Pilot and at Landmark Communications, and even her short stint at The Ladies’ Home Journal are equally impressive. This summer, Iris had the opportunity to talk to this PR dynamo about her time at U.Va., her early career, and her life on both sides of the microphone. Here’s what she had to say:

Iris: How did you get into media/public relations and communications?

Carol: It’s more of, I guess, a personal family story. I spent my career in the newspaper business… I’ll just tell you a little story. When I went to New York [after college] I had two job offers. One was Glamour magazine for $90 a week and one was Ladies’ Home Journal for $95. I took the $95 a week job. So then, I went back to Norfolk, and started at the Virginian-Pilot in 1970, and I worked my way through. I was a copy editor, then I was a feature writer, then I became the assistant editor, and then I became the managing editor for features for a number of years at the Pilot. I had a wonderful career at Landmark Communications [owners of the Virginian-Pilot] and great leadership there. Then I went to Landmark, and I went to the corporate staff and I was their first director of communications at Landmark, then I went back to the newsroom. Then in 1993, Bill Wood, Bill, my husband, had a job offer here. At this time, he was the editorial page editor for the Virginian- Pilot. We had never expected to move. We thought we’d be in Norfolk forever, and then Bill was offered this position as the founding Executive Director of the Sorenson Institute for Political Leadership, which is part of the Cooper Center, at the University… We came with me not having a job. Then Landmark asked me to stay on and do some projects long distance, and so I did that for a number of years. Then, one day I called Bill Fishback, who actually had my current position for a number of years, and said, “Bill…You know, I miss people.” I was working out of my house or I was on the road. And he said, “There’s this job coming open as Director of Media Relations.” … And, so I applied for the job, and it was a lengthy process, and I thought, “Oh, I’m never going to get this.” And, finally, I was offered the job, and I started work… on July 5^th in 1995.

Iris: Since the Zintl Award is about women’s leadership and mentorship, who have been your mentors? What is the most valuable thing they taught you?

Carol: I have had so many wonderful mentors at the University. Louise Dudley [former Vice President for University Relations], certainly, as my first boss.  Another great mentor whom I met very early on, I think in the first week, was Bob Canterbury [former Dean of Students]. He didn’t know he was my mentor! I saw him recently, but you kind of–not latch on, but you see people– I guess that’s one of those things I have always done, as a former reporter, as an observer of people.  You see how people manage and how people operate and you watch them and you learn from them. I have had many people who have been real mentors, Louise certainly, but some who maybe didn’t know that they were influencing me and what I was learning about the University , and what I was learning from them and their leadership styles…  Another person was Shamim Sisson [former associate dean of students and director of the Office of Student Life] who was a Zintl Award Winner… Pat Lampkin has been an incredible friend and mentor to me over the years. Again, she helped me to understand the University in ways that I don’t think going to a class or anything could have taught me… President Casteen and Leonard Sandridge. To watch their leadership, and to have worked so closely with them over the years, I learned an incredible amount from both of them about how the University operates, why we do the things we do, how to deal in the midst of a crisis, so these leaders in the University have been invaluable in my own growth… And I guess I could say that I also learned from the students;  I mean I learned so much from working with students… The students are great teachers.

Iris: Do you have any advice for your twenty-five-year-old self?

Carol: I think I’d have to say, “Listen to people.” If you’re in a job, you need to go back to the core values of the institution.  Also, I think it is to observe people. Observe how people are being treated. You can learn a lot by people’s leadership style. How you want to be treated, how you treat others. Observance. Take a lot in. You might be the smartest young thing. You might have graduated at the head of your class and been a student leader, but when you come into the workplace you are one of many, for one thing. You want to respect everyone that you come in touch with, regardless of where they are in the organization. You want to learn the organization.  You don’t want to come in thinking– you may think you’re going to change the world, but you need to put a check on your, oh I don’t know, what am I trying to say? … You need to be humble. You need to work hard. You need to work really hard. I mean that’s one of the things I always say, “I may not be the smartest person in the room, but I work the hardest to try to get things down.” And, you take on any job. You hear stories of young people who say, “Oh I’m not going to do that, that’s below me.” But I think you have to think that there is no job below you and that you jump in and help, in any way that you can… I also meant to say, you have to have a sense of humor. No sense of humor, forget it.

Iris: How do you approach maintaining positivity when dealing with hard or difficult situations/events, without trivializing the difficulty? In other words, how do you walk the line between being honest and being positive?

Carol: It’s my job to represent the University in both good times and difficult ones. I always try to base my responses on institutional core values — including honor and integrity — and to be as transparent and respectful as possible in presenting the University’s view. From the outside looking in, the University appears large and perhaps imposing, but it is made up of thousands of good people at every level. In my role, I try to put that human face on the University and let people know that this is a deeply caring community. That’s especially important during a crisis. People on the outside don’t understand, nor do I expect them to, how we respond when bad things happen. The worst case is when we have a student death. Reporters always want to get on the inside to see how we work, and when we keep an arm’s length, they don’t understand. We do that to protect our students’ privacy and out of respect for their family and friends. We work with reporters to give them insight into how Student Affairs embraces our students and their families in an effort to help them through their personal crisis — but we also are often called on to put a barrier around families (if that’s what they request) so that they can grieve in private. I learned quickly that in my position it takes many people to tell the University’s story and I rely on them daily. In fact, I see every student and every employee as University spokespeople. I came to the University never expecting to have such great opportunities to work so closely with such extraordinary leaders as John Casteen and Leonard Sandridge, and now Teresa Sullivan. Nor did I expect to have so many extraordinary colleagues — the list of which is very, very long. They have all taught me so much — about the value of higher education, about the University, and about myself. I am so grateful for my time at UVA.

Photograph courtesy of Dan Addison.