BY CATHERINE E. SAUNDERS, VIRGINIA HOY, AND DEBORAH M. SÁNCHEZ This is the third in a series of three George Mason-AAUP Academe Blog posts on lessons learned from the presidential search campaign. Read the first posts on GMU’s campaign and the costs of secret presidential searches here and here. The trend toward increasing secrecy in…
BY BETHANY L. LETIECQ AND JUDITH A. WILDE This is the second in a series of three George Mason-AAUP Academe Blog posts on lessons learned from the presidential search campaign. Read the first post on GMU’s campaign here. Over the past year, two of the Washington, DC, region’s largest public universities lost their presidents. The…
BY ROBERT A. SCOTT The average tenure of college and university presidents has declined from 8.5 years in 2006 to 6.5 years in 2016. The average, of course, masks the longer length of service of those appointed earlier with those appointed more recently, who often face shortened terms. If boards do not manage the transition…
BY BETHANY LETIECQ, TIM GIBSON, AND BETSY DEMULDER This is the first in a series of three George Mason-AAUP Academe Blog posts on lessons learned from the presidential search campaign. Presidential searches conducted at public universities have become secretive processes that exclude most if not all forms of public vetting and engagement. Historically, finalists for…
BY JOHN T. MCNAY The growing obsession on the part of college and university administrations with secrecy, which I address in my recent Academe article, “Ohio AAUP Chapters Contend with Secretive Searches,” is indicative of a larger issue. The continual adoption of corporate models is undermining the academic mission at our institutions. Even corporations, when…
BY FRANK D. LOMONTE Headhunters for university presidential searches make their six-figure commissions by promising trustees they’ll deliver an efficient search with high-quality candidates. What they’ve delivered to the University of Colorado is a slow-motion train wreck, as president-elect Mark Kennedy struggles to salvage his candidacy after a “ready-fire-aim” search process in which trustees admit…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL One of the more disturbing trends in American higher education is the decreasing tenure of senior administrators, especially college and university presidents. Most research finds that presidents serve on average six or seven years. Occasionally, often at faith-based institutions, for instance, the tenure is considerably longer. Hiring Requirements Vary Across Institutions…
BY MICHAEL DECESARE One of the primary findings of the AAUP’s investigative report regarding the University of Iowa’s 2015 presidential search was that “the search was structured and engineered by the regents’ leadership from the outset to identify a figure from the business world congenial to its image of ‘transformative leadership.’” An AP story out yesterday confirms this conclusion.…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Some politicians make good college presidents, at least on paper. As Rick Seltzer reported in Inside Higher Education last week , the best possess many of the same skills as successful college and university presidents. They are typically well connected with outside stakeholders, enjoy good name recognition, and know how to…
BY HANK REICHMAN Over the past several months this blog has posted a number of items about the growing and dangerous trend of conducting searches for top administrators in secret, with no public disclosure of candidates. The disastrous consequences of such searches have already been witnessed at the Universities of Missouri and Iowa and have…