Trailblazing from Greece, to Nebraska, and back again

Very few children know what they want to be when they grow up. But from a young age, Susan Poser knew she wanted a career in law. 

She was inspired by her father, Norman Stanley Poser, a former professor at Brooklyn Law School, and a former executive vice president of the American Stock Exchange. 

“I was very good at arguing,” Poser told the Hofstra University campus newspaper. “I could argue my mother into a corner.”

The 59-year-old grew up in Manhattan and held onto her dream while majoring in ancient Greek and political science at Swarthmore College just outside of Philadelphia, where she graduated with honors in 1985. After that, Poser found herself teaching English at Anatolia College in Greece. 

By 1987, Poser was finally ready to begin her career in law, moving to Lincoln, Nebraska, with husband Stephen DiMagno and their infant child. But it wasn’t the start to her career she expected. 

‘‘A little part of me thought that this was actually his idea of a bad joke,” Poser said of her husband in the Hofstra Chronicle. “And it was going to surprise me when the plane landed in Cancún.”

But no, it really was Nebraska. DiMagno had picked up his first job as an assistant chemistry professor at the University of Nebraska while Poser had hoped to finish her juris doctorate from what is now Berkeley Law School at the University of California. 

“This was a New Yorker moving out to Nebraska with an unwritten dissertation and a 3-week-old baby and no real job,” Poser said.

 “Only love would have made anyone do that kind of thing.” 

But it all came together, and Poser began working at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1994, as a visiting assistant professor of law. She was appointed by the Nebraska State Bar Association in 2003 to review policies in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, before becoming a full professor of law in 2008. Two years later, she was the dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law. 

Poser wasn’t expecting to find herself moving up into the school’s administration, but that changed one day in 2006 when she opened a university-wide email by chance. It was the chancellor, Harvey Perlman, looking for a new associate to the chancellor. 

This became the perfect opportunity to hone in on her problem-solving skills. Like the potential environmental hazard to birds caused by the release of thousands of helium-filled balloons in the school’s stadium when the first Nebraska points were scored in a football game.

It was exactly the kind of role Poser never dreamed of, but discovered was perfect for her: leadership, problem-solving, and institution building.  

The family moved to Chicago in 2016 where Poser was appointed provost and vice chancellor of academic affairs at the University of Illinois-Chicago. At Illinois, Poser led the acquisition of Chicago’s John Marshall Law School, creating the first and only public attorney school in Chicago. She also played a key role in creating two new cultural centers on campus — one focused on Arab American students, and another on students with disabilities.

Poser is always looking for growth and ways to expand her skills, but she knew she had to keep one thing in mind when expanding her career. 

“It’s very important to make sure the work that you’re doing is work that you really want to do, and that you’re not going after jobs for status,” she said

Poser became the ninth president of Hofstra University in 2021 — and its first woman president in its 88-year history. 

She never aspired to be a university president, but got to this point by doing what she loves: problem solving. 

“You should always be doing the job that you want, and not the job that you have,” Poser said. “You should always try to do a little bit extra, and offer to do work that is not necessarily assigned to you.”