In higher education, we tend to want to study successful leaders. However, we can also learn a great deal from those leaders that end up not succeeding for whatever reason. Recently, my research assistant, Molly Ellis, and I published an article in the Journal of Higher Education on involuntary turnover among college presidents. In today’s post, I want to share the key conclusions and implications from our work.
Most in higher education understand the complexity of the daily work of college presidents. College presidents must balance internal and external concerns and stakeholders. Recently, the American Council on Education (ACE) released the long-awaited report, American College President Study 2017. The ACE president studies are the most comprehensive available and provide a wealth of insights into the presidency. In my third post in a series on the report (earlier posts considered demographics and the search process), I am going to consider the major findings of the ACE study and the implications for higher education. In today’s post, I will examine the daily work of college president to help provide background on the role of the president.
The presidential search process can be a time of optimism for the institution or has the potential to bog down the college while waiting for a new leader. Unfortunately, we know very little about the presidential search process in higher education despite the growing challenges facing presidents today. Recently, the American Council on Education (ACE) released the long-awaited report, American College President Study 2017. The ACE president studies are the most comprehensive available and provide a wealth of insights into the presidency. In a series of posts (the first post considered demographics), I am going to consider the major findings of the study and the implications for higher education. In today’s post, I will examine the college president search process in higher education to see what insights can be gained and additional research questions need to be considered.
Higher education has a diversity problem. I suspect most of us know that higher education leaders are often older, white men. Recently, the American Council on Education (ACE) released the long-awaited report, American College President Study 2017. The ACE president studies are the most comprehensive available and provide a wealth of insights into the presidency. In a series of posts, I am going to consider the major findings of the study and the implications for higher education. In today’s post, I will examine the demographics of college presidents to see how far we’ve come and how far we have to go.
As I discussed a few months ago, I’m currently conducting a study with my research assistant on the causes of why college presidents are fired or forced to resign. There was tremendous press around this issue particularly with Holden Thorp leaving UNC following the academic and athletic crisis there. This past weekend, Barry Jacobs, a sports columnist for the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News and Observer wrote a thoughtful column that I want to repost and share here. Jacobs references our study about the causes for presidential involuntary turnover. I thought his take and the comparison between Holden Thorp and Paul Hardin was particularly salient. The athletics pressures on college presidents aren’t new and remain a significant problem for many universities.
There’s no surefire way to prepare, no tutorial or textbook laying out the pitfalls and pressure points. University presidents and chancellors, the NCAA’s putative leaders, reportedly don’t even like to discuss athletics among themselves. Most will survive averting their gaze – “involuntary transitions” due to athletics scandal are surprisingly uncommon, according to a yet-to-be-published working paper on turnover among university presidents.
“The struggles with athletics may be the most prominent, but I don’t know that it’s the most threatening to a presidency, by and large,” says Michael Harris, the Southern Methodist University professor who co-authored the study. Firings and resignations, particularly at public universities, are more likely due to “loss of board confidence” and “financial improprieties.”
