With only a few exceptions, American colleges and universities suffer from poor leadership. Most presidents and chancellors are get-along types who never confront the ideologues who are intent on turning their schools into factories for the propagation of “progressive” notions. Have any said “no” to demands for burgeoning “diversity” offices? I don’t believe so.
Recently, the UNC Board of Governors held a meeting to consider the leadership problem, and in today’s Martin Center article, Jay Schalin and Ashlynn Warta write about it.
The authors begin, “One of the most important tasks of a public university system is choosing the leaders of its individual institutions. Because these leaders are at the center of all campus activities, they wield tremendous power; they are the ones who set the campus tone and oversee the day-to-day operations. A university system needs to make sure it has the proper criteria for deciding who is to run its institutions, updating the criteria often as prior weaknesses get exposed and the academic environment changes.”
Did the UNC BOG make any headway in setting the ideal criteria for choosing academic leaders? Not much. A fair amount of time was squandered on presentations by “stakeholders” who like things pretty much as they are.
Schalin and Warta offer the view that the most astute observation came from committee chairman David Powers, who said that a good academic leader is more like the mayor of a city than the CEO of a business.
“What makes a good college chief executive?” the authors ask. “If you look in media, consultant, and academic circles, you will receive an avalanche of platitudes and warm, fuzzy word salad. But today’s successful candidate needs, most of all, to have great intestinal fortitude and the confidence to stand his or her ground in a controversy. Too many current chancellors and presidents are cut from a different mold; they are likely to cut and run at the first sight of confrontation, or they will try to appease radical elements so they won’t cause trouble (even though they eventually do so).”
That hits upon the root of the problem — the kinds of people who are almost always recommended by experts and search firms are unlikely to have the right vision for a college or university.