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.
We know that being a college president is a difficult job. Presidents must serve as administrative leaders, prolific fundraisers, and provide vision for the institution. Along with two of my graduate students, Molly Ellis and Brittany Barker, I have been interested in developing a better empirical understanding of why presidents leave office. We presented this work at the Association for the Study of Higher Education annual meeting and the Chronicle of Higher Education provided a nice discussion of our work that I would like to share with you.
Major university presidents’ risk of being removed from office has surged in recent years, but the factors determining the length of their tenure are not always what people in academe assume, according to new research.
One new study, an examination of 25 years’ worth of records dealing with university presidents’ departures, found that the share of leaders who left involuntarily rose substantially after 2007, for reasons not always attributable to the economic crisis spawned then.
A second study, an analysis of the circumstances surrounding public university presidents’ retirements or job changes, found that working for large governing boards or for Republican governors tended to shorten tenures. Contrary to what the study’s authors had hypothesized, however, leaders hired from outside their institutions — or even outside academe — generally remained in office longer than those promoted from jobs within their institutions.
The two studies, presented Thursday at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, provide new evidence that the task of running a college has become more difficult as a result of broader trends in the field such as growing competitive pressures.
“We all know that the presidency of colleges and universities is becoming more complex,” says Lynn M. Gangone, who, as vice president for leadership programs for the American Council on Education, has watched many well-intentioned presidents lose support on campus as their institution confronts some crisis.
“An awful lot of presidents who are stepping down are doing so under pressure that is not visible to the public at large,” says Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, a former president of George Washington University and co-author of the 2013 book Presidencies Derailed: Why University Leaders Fail and How to Prevent It. He says he worries “that the next generation of presidents, concerned with job security, are going to be less entrepreneurial and less committed to change at exactly the time that we need those characteristics.”
The study of the ouster of presidents was conducted by Michael S. Harris, an associate professor of higher education at Southern Methodist University, and Molly K. Ellis and Brittany Barker, both graduate students at that institution. Their research looked at presidential turnovers at 214 private or public institutions that were either master’s-level or awarded doctoral degrees, examining media accounts and other public records related to presidents who left office from 1988 to 2013.
Although the period covered by their study ended three years ago, “there is no reason to think this has stopped,” Mr. Harris says. “If anything, it has escalated in the past two or three years.”
Of the 500 presidents’ departures reviewed, 62, or 12 percent, involved presidents who had clearly left involuntarily. Of the two sectors examined, doctoral universities appeared more than twice as likely to have experienced such turmoil — 18 percent of their presidents had obviously been fired or forced to resign, compared with 8 percent at master’s institutions.
The last six years studied, from 2008 to 2013, accounted for a whopping 44 percent of the involuntary turnovers. Presidents’ heads seemed especially likely to roll in 2009, when eight got pushed out. The paper says that the recession of 2008 and 2009 “likely played a role in the increased turnover” but that many left for reasons unrelated to the economy. Among ousted presidents examined by the study, three of the four who had been caught up in athletics controversies, and three of the five accused of plagiarism or other lapses in integrity, met their downfalls after 2008.
At both doctoral and master’s institutions, the largest share of forced departures — more than a fifth — were attributed by the researchers to “financial impropriety,” a description that encompassed everything from the illegal misuse of funds to expenditures on travel or a presidential home that came under fire as overly lavish.
Some experts who reviewed the paper question whether “financial impropriety” represents an appropriate characterization of such alleged transgressions. Terrence MacTaggart, a senior fellow at the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, says the term “implies criminality or near-criminality” when some boards’ conclusions that presidents had misused funds probably came down to tough judgment calls.
Mr. Trachtenberg says such accusations of misspending often represent “an excuse” to get rid of a president who has aroused widespread campus opposition by raising tuition or denying employees pay increases. “Redecorating the house is only an issue in times of austerity,” when a president’s critics “look for some symbolic act on your part to focus on,” he argues.
Among the other reasons given for presidents’ removals, the second most common, for both types of institutions, was “widespread campus dissatisfaction,” meaning opposition from more than one campus constituency.
Other reasons given for departures differed sharply by institution type. Doctoral universities accounted for the lion’s share of presidencies lost due to athletics controversies, political controversies, or breakdowns in relationships with governing boards. Presidents of master’s-level institutions were far more likely to have lost their jobs after being accused of sexual misconduct or lapses in integrity.
In cases where presidents got booted for multiple reasons, the researchers blamed whatever appeared to have been the primary one. They took the presidents’ word that they had left voluntarily in cases where they could not find multiple sources that said a resignation had been forced.
“I suspect there are more involuntary departures than the authors describe because a lot of them are ease-outs, encouragements to find another job, and early retirements,” says Mr. MacTaggart, of the Association of Governing Boards.
Among the study’s limitations, the researchers relied on newspaper reports, press releases, and other third-party accounts of departures, and did not consider data on the institutions or measures of presidential performance.
Amanda Rutherford, an assistant professor of public management at Indiana University at Bloomington, and Jon Lozano, a doctoral student in its school of education, conducted the other study. They examined the departures of more than more than 200 presidents of public research universities during the period from 1993 through 2011, excluding cases involving two obvious reasons for leaving office: dying or being charged with a crime.
The study, which did not try to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary departures, took into account federal, state, and institutional data on the universities, their governing boards, and the presidents themselves. The researchers crunched their data to try to isolate which variables influenced longevity and where presidents ended up after stepping down.
In seeking to explain their finding that presidents who had been promoted from within the university tended to remain in office for less time, the researchers noted that outside hires were more likely to have had experience as the heads of organizations.
Among their other findings, the researchers saw a positive correlation between longevity and two factors: per-student state appropriation and tuition sticker price. Whether a university’s faculty had unionized appeared to have no bearing.
Where such presidents went after leaving their jobs “is largely driven by personal characteristics,” says the researchers’ paper on their findings. Those hired from another college are less likely than others to choose to retire, as opposed to taking jobs at their own institution, another college, or a private firm. Those who had not previously worked in academe, by contrast, were especially likely to eschew retirement in favor of taking a job at a private firm, suggesting that their higher-education role had been “only one segment of their identity.”
This story appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education on November 10, 2016.
The situation at Baylor University in recent months is disturbing on many levels. The university president has been fired. A winning football coach is gone as well. Too many women have faced sexual assault and the university failed to act. Beyond the horrible facts of what happened at Baylor, I see a broader trend at work here. In today’s post, I want to share a column published in TribTalk, a publication from the Texas Tribune. My research assistant, Molly Ellis, and I discuss Baylor and our research into why university presidents get fired.
The fallout from the protests on the racial environment at the University of Missouri continues. The university has fired Melissa Click, an assistant professor in communications. Click was videoed calling for “muscle” to help remove a student reporter and became a lightning rod for critics of the protesters. After voting to fire her, the board acknowledged the process used to terminate Click was not typical. This seems to be the only point where everyone agrees. Today, I want to tackle the question of whether they were right to fire her.
To begin, I find Professor Click’s behavior disappointing and reprehensible. I don’t know her, but I have colleagues that I can see being a part of the protest and even responding in similar ways.
I don’t consider that part of my role as a faculty member. It doesn’t mean that I’m right and she’s wrong— necessarily. We just view our roles differently.
The Board of Governors refuses to say why they are forcing out Tom Ross as UNC system president. The Board clearly has the right and prerogative to ask Ross to step down. No one is questioning this. However, we should all be questioning the Board’s judgment. Board of Governors Chair John Fennebresque refused to state the need for change. He said the board simply felt there should be a transition to a new president. Unfortunately, President Ross’ transition isn’t the only one occurring here. The most obvious interpretation of removing Ross is that the move signals a newfound sense of activism on the part of the UNC Board of Governors.
With Republican majorities taking over in the state capital, nearly the entire membership of the Board of Governors has turned over in recent years.
At the same time, board activism in higher education has increased across the country with grave long-term consequences.
Healthy boards are responsible for the financial strength of the university, hire the president, and serve as a resource. Activist boards micromanage universities and undermine institutional leaders.
Yet, the conservative-leaning American Council of Trustees and Alumni has called on university board members to speak up as institutional watchdogs. The group wants boards to carefully track expenses and boldly confront campus leaders on academic policy.
What’s wrong with board members ensuring the wise spending of state funds or reforming academic policies?
There are many examples from other states where activist boards have harmed their universities.
The reality is that activist boards follow a narrow ideology. This leads to excessive and unproductive conflicts with university leaders.
Activist boards often believe colleges and universities are like businesses and can be reengineered, downsized, bought, sold, and consolidated. They show little patience in waiting for administrators to institute reforms. They fail to consider the perspective of faculty.
The irony, of course, is that corporate boards wouldn’t act this way. These boards give CEOs wide latitude to focus on the core business, mission, and strategy execution.
Instead, activist boards follow partisan politics and encourage excessive budget cuts. They exhibit an open hostility to shared governance between trustees, administrators, faculty, and students.
If the Board of Governors continues along this path, they will intensify conflict between themselves and university leaders. Moreover, an activist strategy will further inject partisanship and politics into the university. No one wins with an increasingly politicized environment for higher education.
Today, the UNC system faces enormous challenges. Tuition has increased and state support has fallen. Students and families are struggling with how to pay for college. Demographic changes will confront university leaders for the next generation.
By 2018, the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce estimates that 59% of North Carolina jobs will require some form of higher education. The UNC system has a critical role to play in preparing the state for this economy.
These are big issues that demand a sustained commitment from state leaders, board members, administrators, and faculty.
An activist and micromanaging Board of Governors makes solving these challenges harder.
Simply put, North Carolina can’t afford an activist Board of Governors.
The long term prosperity of North Carolina’s people and economy depend too much on a healthy, vibrant, and innovative system of higher education.
