Ted Baker: Reflections
By Alex Selim

It was going to be a big Tuesday for Felisa Neuringer Klubes, SAIS’s Director of Public Relations. That morning, former Clinton negotiator Dennis Ross was speaking in Professor Zartman’s class and in the evening then–National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to speak at an event.

But this September morning was different. While Ross was speaking, Klubes received word from her assistant that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

Throughout the rest of the day, Klubes and Dean Baker expertly handled the school’s response to the terrorist attacks. They canceled Secretary Rice’s visit while keeping the media and the students informed about the developments at the school, and kept the school buildings open for students to congregate around the TVs.

Klubes says that throughout the crisis, Dean Baker’s handling of the situation made everyone’s jobs much easier in coordinating the school’s response and in helping the students through the day.

“The whole time he stayed very calm and collected,” she said.

That September morning demonstrated how even under the most extraordinary circumstances Dean Baker has served SAIS with a sense of professionalism, all the while being completely sensitive to the needs of students.

And now, after fourteen years of service, Dean Ted Baker will be stepping down as Senior Associate Dean of Finance and Administration and taking a half-time position on June 30. While he will retain the title of Senior Associate Dean, he will not have the Finance and Administration portfolio, which will free him to pursue other projects that he has not had time to complete in his current position.

SAIS is actively looking to fill Dean Baker’s position but it is hard to imagine anyone could fill it with the energy and enthusiasm that Dean Baker has.

During his tenure at SAIS, Dean Baker has been instrumental in refurbishing both the Nitze and Rome buildings, setting up the Bernstein Offit building, and changing SAIS’s academic structure in order to allow more professors in the larger programs.

He also contributed to the formation of the South East Asia and South Asia programs as well as the revamping of the International Development program, and enabled the founding of research projects such as the Central Asian-Caucus Institute, the Protection Project, the International Reporting project and the Center for Transatlantic Relations.

“Everywhere you look at SAIS, you see the infrastructure that he found the money to finance and carefully oversaw to get,” Dean Einhorn said about him.

“A Quintessential Gentleman”
Describing his responsibilities in finance, infrastructure, technology, human resources, communications, the library and other school activities, however, still does little justice to what Dean Baker has done for the school.

“He’s helped guide the school to an extent that’s unusual for a dean of finance and administration.” Dean Wilson said. “It’s inherently a vital position but he’s so much more than that.”

Those who’ve worked with him all mentioned his desire to be involved with everything and everyone. If he wasn’t working on a project directly, he was encouraging and inspiring those around him to put their hearts and souls into their work.

“Everything good that happens at SAIS has had Dean Baker’s participation in cheering it on, or sponsoring it or just making it possible,” Dean Einhorn said.

Those who worked with him have described him as a wonderful friend and a strong leader. Nearly all of them commented on his character. 

 “He’s a quintessential gentleman,” Dean Wilson said of him.

Discipline and a Sense of Service
Before coming to SAIS, Dean Baker was a Rear Admiral in the Navy where he served for 35 years, which no doubt contributed to his leadership skills.

“He brought with him [from the Navy] discipline and a sense of service that have been the hallmark of his career,” according to Dean Wilson.

During the Lebanon Crisis in 1958, he was a midshipman in the Sixth Fleet that was sent to Beirut.
Later as he grew in rank, he was stationed, among other places, in the Horn of Africa and in the Far East.

He eventually became the Director of East Asia and the Pacific in the Defense Department.

In 1972, while in Washington, he was a Federal Executive Fellow at the Brookings Institution where he met a PhD student from Princeton and SAIS alum named Jessica Einhorn. At about the same time, he met his wife Stephanie, one of Dean Einhorn’s friends and classmates from the SAIS class of 1970.

With his background in systems analysis and international policy SAIS was a logical transition for him.
As the Senior Associate Dean at SAIS, he finds his role very similar to his position in the Navy.

His work at SAIS is “a lot like running a ship,” he says, but with the added benefit that “you don’t have worry about running it aground.”

Between retiring from the Navy and starting at SAIS, he only took one month of vacation, and he says that his only regret is that he should have taken three. However, it’s fitting that he should say so since one of his colleagues remarked that it seems that he never takes a vacation.

A Commitment to his Students
There is a story Dean Baker likes to tell the faculty and the students who came to see him about when his wife asks him how his day was when he goes home from work.

“If I’ve had three or four meetings with students, I’ll tell her it was a good day,” he says.

“But if it was just the faculty ...” he sometimes adds jokingly and trails off.

“His number one priority is absolutely the students at SAIS,” Klubes, who has worked with him since 1998, said.

“There have been a number of occasions where he was bent over backwards to make something happen for the students,” she said.  

Dean Baker’s funding has made a lot of student projects and trips possible.

“If something is a great experience for students he makes it happen,” Klubes adds.

Having a meeting with Dean Baker, at least for this writer, has almost always meant talking about business for five minutes and talking about his days in the Navy (his stories about the Horn of Africa inspired my own trip to Yemen over Spring Break) or whatever book he happens to be reading.

According to Klubes, he’s an avid reader. Almost every book she’s recommended to him, on any subject, he’s read.

He also has a great sense of humor.

At faculty holiday theme parties, Dean Baker has been known to go all out in his costumes. One year he went as the Captain of the SAIS “cruise ship” and another year he went as the wizard from the Wizard of Oz.

Keeping SAIS’s Reputation
When asked how he feels about his job, Dean Baker has three things to say about it: “A.) I love it. B.) I love it and C.) I love it.”

Though he is cutting down his responsibilities with the school, he is no less invested in its success.
“The competition is improving. We should never be satisfied with where we are. It takes continuous work to keep our reputation.”

This, he says, is done by continuing to attract excellent students, and by adapting to their current interests and needs. 

And considering how hard he works, even as a part time employee, the school may not be losing as much as it thinks.

When Dean Baker told his wife about the change in his employment status she responded, “You’ve never done anything half time. This just means you’re getting half pay.”

Alex Selim is a 1st year MA candidate in Middle East Studies, and an editor of the Observer