Ariel Horn: The real Judith Rodin

Three years ago, I ran into my high school English teacher as she was buying pantyhose at the mall. We chatted for a bit, but it was an uncomfortable experience. The whole time we were talking, I couldn't stop focusing on the fact that here I was, watching my old English teacher as she picked out hosiery.

Before this experience, I had lived contentedly with a pleasant illusion: teachers don't have lives outside the classroom.

College challenged that perception, though, as anyone knows who has bumped into a professor snacking at Starbucks or had the uncomfortable experience of watching one try to impress a date in a restaurant (that might've been just a personal experience).

But ever since freshman year, there has been one Penn person who has still remained an elusive mystery: University President Judith Rodin. Sure, she showed up at all the expected places -- ground-breakings, alumni lunches and Commencement -- but who is Judy Rodin, really? What is that je ne sais quoi about Judy, that je ne sais pas?

And so, one day last week I stalked ("observed") our president. I attended her preceptorial on leadership, I went to a faculty breakfast and attended a new faculty reception. But it was when Judy let her guard down, perhaps forgetting that I was going to write a column, that I really learned who she is.

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At the new faculty reception, about 150 faculty members schmoozed at Judy's house on Walnut. But rather than stalking her from afar, I decided to see what I could find out about her by casually browsing through her bookshelves.

Photographs: Judy with Bill Cosby at graduation one year, Judy with family, Judy with son Alex.

Books: Gandhi's A Prisoner of Hope, Women in Middle Eastern History and an intro to psych book by Henry Gleitman.

In the time that it had taken to inventory Judy's living room, she had managed to chat it up with almost every professor there -- the woman made the rounds. Before I knew it, nobody was left and Judy and I were talking about the art in her house (some of it's hers, some of it's the University's collection).

Hoping to get an exclusive, I casually asked: "So where do you really live?"

She rolled her eyes. "I really do live here! I don't have a house in the suburbs! I don't know why everyone thinks that."

Apparently, I seem skeptical. "Here, let me show you the house."

Excellent! We went upstairs, passing some tribal art (it's hers) and a chest from Hong Kong (also hers), as we made our way to her study. It's very much lived-in -- books, newspapers and scattered papers prove this is not a woman who lives here only once a week.

I peeked into her bathroom -- sure enough, it was filled with all the soaps, hair products and bathroom items that clutter every normal person's counter.

"Don't look at the closet," she said. "It's messy and I can't close it."

Next is the bedroom, her exercise room, her son's room (complete with a poster of Kramer from Seinfeld) and finally back down to her dining room. OK, she really does live here.

We sat down and talked about the usual things one expects a university president to talk about: the fund-raising involved in her job, the implicit love she has for Penn and the University's assets and weaknesses.

Did Judy respond to my questions in a way that would make her look good? Yes, I won't lie -- she had her "interview face" on. But honestly, who could blame her? After reviewing her schedule, it's easy to understand how our university president has gotten used to making sure she is "on" all the time. She needs to be. And it's to our benefit that she is.

But it was when Judy finally let her guard down that I began to look at her more than just as an icon of Penn. In high school, she wanted to be an interpreter for the U.N., but after taking Psych 001 with Gleitman as her professor and Robert Rescorla as her TA, she was inspired to change her goals.

We talked about the last book she really loved, Ahab's Wife, "a woman's coming-of-age story based on a couple of sentences in Moby Dick in which Melville alludes to Ahab having a young wife." She confessed that one of the most difficult parts of her job is that she's a "voracious reader," and doesn't have enough time to do so.

At the end of our conversation, I asked her half-jokingly what page 217 of her autobiography would look like. She laughed.

"A hard one!" Then there was a long, honest pause.

"It would be about my time at Penn -- it has been a very defining experience for me. It's given me the chance to do something incredibly important. Whatever I do beyond this, this truly has been the most personally defining experience, and where I feel I've left the most significant imprint."

Ariel Horn is a senior English major from Short Hills, N.J.

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