Assessing Presidential Effectiveness

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

Assessing Presidential Effectiveness is a new book from the Association of Governing Boards (AGB) of Colleges and Universities by Richard Morrill. You can also read this lengthy article on the in Trusteeship, also by Morrill. More description of the book:

In this publication, Richard Morrill focuses on the president, the board, and other decision-making systems and relationships. An assessment should be an opportunity “for the board to deepen its understanding of the president and the organization,” he writes, “to connect and integrate elements of its own responsibilities, to intensify its engagement with the institution and to broaden its influence in shared leadership.” 


Chapters on the board’s responsibilities in appraisal and development, annual and comprehensive assessment, procedures and protocols, and policies and materials, as well as valuable resources and sample assessment questions and forms provide a solid for institutions to begin this most important process.

Drawing on his background as president emeritus of the University of Richmond, Morrill, now president of the Teagle Foundation, not only shares personal experiences but also situates the theory and practice of presidential evaluation in the landscape of higher education today.

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SCUP's Planning Institute: Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers while you engage in one of the three SCUP Planning Institute Steps. In addition to being offered on demand, on campuses to teams of campus leaders, the institute steps are also offered to all professionals at varying times and venues. Currently scheduled are:

• May 22–23, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• July 10, Minneapolis, MN - Step I (in conjunction with SCUP–45)
• October 2, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• January 21–22, Tuscon, AZ - Step II and Step III

Diverse Paths to the Presidency

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time.

Check it out! You don't want to miss higher education's premier planning conference, and your one chance this year to assemble with nearly 1,500 of your peers and colleagues: July 10–14, Minneapolis.

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SCUP Link

In University Business magazine, Melisa Ezarik (who often comes to SCUP conferences, we hope to see you in Minneapolis in July, Melissa!) shares this article which is blurbed: "With shrinking candidate pools, retirements on the horizon, and new realities for institutions and their leaders, it’s time to broaden higher education’s idea of the best career path to get there."

As higher education evolves, what it means to be a college president may well evolve, too. “Clearly the times are demanding people to think creatively and differently about pedagogy, curricula, delivery systems, and the entire process,” says Courtice. He sees some institutions deciding they don’t need to change the model of who a president is just yet, while others will realize they’ve got to change now.

Storbeck believes a close look at the expectations of presidents is in order. “The nature of the job, the 24/7 [aspect]—it’s heavy lifting in every direction. … There must be ways to make the job a little bit more manageable for people so they’re not feeling after two to three years that they’ve used up all the gas in the tank,” she says.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA - "Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats"
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA - "Smart Planning in an Era of Uncertainty"
• April 7, Houston, TX - "Sustaining Higher Education in an Age of Challenge"

For a Campus in Crisis, the President's Voice Is Key

Three related SCUP resources:

• Topical resource page on crisis and disaster planning;
• Knowledge Community (email list) on emergency management planning; and
• Monograph for presidents by Sal D. Rinella, Lessons from the Front: The Presidential Role in Disaster Planning and Response (PDF).

Everyone knows about disaster or emergency planning, but how do those differ from crisis planning? Good crisis planning, or crisis management, is fully integrated and covers any kind of possible negative impact on a campus. That includes the kinds of physical disasters we commonly think of, as well as situations like the recent tragic shootings at UAH, or even the news that a university official in a high place has been arrested for a felony. (The field of crisis management got its start during the Tylenol tampering of the last century.)

This recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Scott Carlson focuses on the presidential perspective in managing crisis. "Larry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations at Virginia Tech, says that Mr. Steger is not naturally inclined to talk to the news media. But Mr. Hincker advised from the beginning of Virginia Tech's response to the 2007 tragedy on its campus that the president should be visible as the steady face of the university during a crisis, and he says Mr. Steger did not hesitate."

SCUP Resource. Current SCUP president-elect Sal D. Rinella authored a monograph on this topic, Lessons from the front" The Presidential Role in Disaster Planning and Response (PDF). Its advice is sound and timeless, and a copy of this monograph should be in every campus top PR staffer's backpack, as well as in every president's. Why don't you ensure that your president has a copy?

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Successful Admissions Prospecting Tips from Presidents

Today's Campus repackages 9 brief interviews with campus presidents who excel in one way or another at admissions prospecting.

The combined ages of the nine campuses represented here may well approach a thousand years. Each shares a common characteristic--a hands-on president, who is intent on the school's remaining a strong competitor. Each knows the value of having a particular distinction. And each campus has mastered at least one admissions prospecting tactic.

These are really brief quotes apparently taken from longer interviews. Each paragraph has a bolded key phrase, and those are: articulation agreements, simultaneous dual admission and enrollment at more than one school, external partnerships, internet advertising agencies, carefully refined leads, recruiter motivation tactics, referrals from alums, focus on sustainability, location and employment assistance, and welcoming unusual combinations of studies.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Small-College Presidents Hear Tips on Building a Leadership Team

Writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Robin Wilson reveals some of the shared leadership stories of the 255 small college presidents who met recently via the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC). Scott Jaschick of Inside Higher Ed also attended this conference and reports on it here. Wilson focused on top level leadership team challenges and Jaschik writes more broadly about the issues discussed.

From Wilson's account:

Most valuable, the presidents said, was to seek senior leaders who can think about the work of the whole institution, rather than be sidetracked by devotion to their own special areas.

"You want people who can take that big picture and give up something they normally would have fought for in their own area—because it's in the best interests of the institution," said Susan C. Scrimshaw, president of the Sage College.

From Jaschik's account:

"Is there an economist in the house?" Paul Hennigan, president of Point Park University, jokingly asked the question of a group of college presidents gathered here at a meeting of the Council of Independent Colleges. While there was one economist among the presidents, he seemed as worried as everyone else about the impact the economy was having on their institutions.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

ACE's 'The Presidency" Magazine

To read complete articles from The Presidency magazine, from the American Council on Education, you must be a subscriber. However, ACE publishes a complete Table of Contents for each issue with lengthy excerpts from the articles.

From the Fall 2009 issue - Volume 12, Number 3 - the following excerpts are available: A New Morrill Act: Higher Education Anchors the 'Remaking of America' by Nancy Cantor, Syracuse University; Connecting with Today's Students by Graham B. Spanier, The Pennsylvania State University; The Enterprise of the Future by Dennis J. Murray, Marist College; How Boards Go Wrong - And Right: Observations on the Search and Selection of College Presidents by Rebecca A. Denton and John E. Moore, Jr., Drury University; and Career Paths: Presidential Hiring by Harry L. Peterson, Western State College of Colorado.

Q&A With Bill Flores, President of the University of Houston, Downtown

Bill Flores is president of the University of Houston, Downtown, and formerly president of the Federal Reserve Bank as well as provost and executive vice president of New Mexico State University. He was recently named one of the 100 most influential Hispanic leaders in the US. Jefff Wendt of Today's Campus (formerly The Greentree Gazette) provides this brief interview with Flores:

We are preparing tomorrow’s leaders, so we must continue to plan convenient schedules and online delivery methods that fit into modern lives. We will expand our offerings to serve a broader spectrum of the population. We expect to add more dual-credit offerings for high school juniors and seniors. We will serve more adults entering second and third careers. And we will continue to add degree programs that meet workforce demands in Houston.

The Iron Triangle: College Presidents Talk about Costs, Access, and Quality

From the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and Public Agenda, comes this late 2008 report. The structure of the introduction tells you something about the contents of the report: "Higher education in changing times"; "Are we headed for dialogue or for stalemate?"; 'A missing pre-condition for dialogue"; "An investment worth paying for"; "Are you listening to us?"; "A dangling conversation?"; "Expected and unexpected views."

Three key insights emerged from these conversations—one expected, the other two less so. The first is that, as one might have anticipated, our respondents were incredibly thoughtful, informed, and articulate; they drew from a wide range of experience from their own institutions, from other institutions where they had served, and from their participation in national and regional professional associations. The second factor, initially less anticipated, is that none of them was the least surprised by our questions. Indeed, we began each interview by asking the respondents to list his or her issues of greatest concern. For the most part, the presidents began by listing some version of our three main topics: college costs, access, and quality. In some cases, the presidents even conducted parts of the interview for us, following up their own statements by saying, “But you will probably ask me…” The third observation is that there was a great deal of commonality in the way the presidents perceived the issues. Just as it’s possible to put a number of photographs together to create a composite picture, the college presidents’ responses—taken together—can be summarized by a composite view. While few of the presidents would wholeheartedly agree with all of this composite (and some would endorse very little of it), most of the presidents we interviewed resonated with much of it.

Big Man on Campus: An Interview with Stephen Joel Trachtenberg

This interview is available both as streaming audio and in transcript form. Trachtenberg was president of George Washington University for 19 years. Prior to that he served as president of the University of Hartford for 11 years. His latest book is titled Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education. When asked about his comments in the book that he hoped the GW board would treat his successor more humanely, he replied:

Well, I was being slightly tongue in cheek of course. What I meant was that college presidents, and my successor is no exception in this regard, are being driven to raise more and more funds in order to feed the institution. And this is daunting and I anticipated that with a new president coming in, the university would have ambitions and would want to take the institution to the next level. That's why we bring in new presidents—to help us focus on the future, to help us define where we want to go, and to write the next chapter of the institutional history. And I had just left office—during my tenure, we had gone from $200 million in endowment to about a billion four hundred million dollars in endowment. And, this gives people appetite. And I thought, my goodness, they need to have a certain amount of compassion for this new man coming in not knowing his constituencies, not yet having a vision for the institution. They had to work with him, and understand he was not a magician.

Understanding the Influence of Academic Disciplines on Those Within Them Who Become Presidents

This is a too-brief article (PDF) on a study of college and university presidents and how the academic discipline that formed their earlier years as academics may influence their presidential style. This should be a useful read for planners who must deal with presidents, and definitely a must-read for those who need to interact with any one of the many presidents represented in the story's vignettes.

Wanted: Someone Who Knows Nothing About the Job

He's baack: Stanley Fish has spent much of the last year stirring things up in a number of topical areas. This time he takes on searches for senior administrators in higher education:

The truth is that there are no perfectly straightforward senior administrative searches. They are all a bit cooked, and often they serve more as window dressing than as genuinely deliberative processes. Indeed, given that search committees are always advisory, those asked to serve on them should be aware that the work they do will quite possibly be to no effect, either because a decision had been made before the process ever began or because the ball is taken away and given to someone else just as the goal is approached. (The phrase “university service” takes on new meaning for those who agree to participate in this piece of theater.) That’s just the way it is, and it’s not a matter of blame, but a consequence of a process that straddles two worlds, the world of teaching and scholarship and the world of high-stakes finance and politics.