Three trends are prompting the need for immediate action, the leaders said:
• Enormous turnover of college presidents and senior leaders resulting from a wave of retirements
• A shrinking pool of people interested in the presidency who hold positions that traditionally precede the presidency
• Inadequate systems for preparing diverse and non-traditional candidates for the presidency
Moving forward, the “college president of the future” will likely need skills to help bring about change, use new technologies to create value for students and the university community, and will need to clearly articulate the institution’s vision to garner public support.
But in order to find these skills, which include communication skills, fiscal planning, budgeting, and revenue-raising, the pipeline to the college presidency itself must expand.
nless the pipeline to the presidency itself is expanded. “The Aspen Institute’s report lays out the significant challenges we face in today’s college presidency,” said Dianne F. Harrison, President of California State University, Northridge, “while at the same time demonstrating that the integration of these challenges necessitates expanding the presidential pipeline to include greater diversity of talented individuals in order to strengthen the college presidency for the 21st century preparation of both presidents and students.”
Specifically, the group recommends that everyone engaged with colleges and their leadership focus on three areas to meet the challenge.
1. Expand and improve the professional development and peer learning opportunities for new and veteran presidents. Regardless of the breadth of professional experience one has prior to entering a presidency, few enter the role prepared for its complexities. The report calls for greater attention to intentional “onboarding” of new presidents, as well as additional learning opportunities in important emerging areas such as digital learning, predictive analytics, and social media. It also provides a model one-year induction process for new college and university presidents.
2. Provide boards of trustees with greater and more assistance to set institutional goals, and to hire, support, and work with presidents. Citing the lack of preparedness of some boards to set direction and identify and support highly effective presidents, the report calls for proactive and consistent coaching for trustees to better inform their decision-making with these college and university leaders.
3. Advance new and expanded ways to identify and develop a diverse presidential talent pool. The traditional academic pathway to the presidency includes too few senior leaders who aspire to the position, too few woman and people of color, and not enough opportunities for non-traditional candidates. The report calls on all presidents to identify and mentor two to three people with exceptional promise to lead colleges and universities. Further, nonprofits and associations are encouraged to build programs to expose nontraditional candidates to service and leadership positions at higher education institutions, with the expectation that some will emerge as attractive candidates for presidencies.
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