University Business - March 2010 - (Page 48)

Paths to the Presidency eight months, during which there are multiple rounds of interviews and conﬁdentiality is considered important, but not guaranteed. “There are some independent college searches that move right through to the ﬁnal selection process, [with oﬃcials] coming up with some fairly creative ways to keep the identity of the candidates conﬁdential,” says Courtice, who served as an academic president himself for a total of 27 years. Yet, depending on the state and its political climate, “sunshine laws” may require candidates be revealed early on. Not surprisingly, some hesitate to participate in the process. “People aren’t going to apply if it’s public knowledge and it’s going to be creating a problem at their current institution,” says King. In general, “it takes a lot of work to get a highly successful person engaged in the process,” says Shelly Weiss Storbeck, managing partner of Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates, a female/minorityowned search ﬁrm that focuses on higher ed. “I tell committees, ‘The person you’re probably going to be interested in is … going to have to be cajoled a little bit to even take a look.’ ” Honing in on CAOs, a full 45 percent surveyed by ACE don’t want to pursue a presidency. “They’ve seen the presidency up close and personal in their roles, so they have a pretty good sense of whether it’s something they want to be doing,” says King. The most popular reasons: unappealing nature of the work, ready to retire, the time demands aren’t appealing, wanting to return to academic work, and too old to be considered. With all the steps traditionally needed to get to that place, “unless they want to be a president in their 70s, they’re going to time out,” she adds. Storbeck notes the incredible amount of “energy, ‘I tell committees, “The person you’re probably endurance, and capability to deal with a variety of constituencies” needed for the job. “They’re well comgoing to be interested in is … going to have to pensated certainly, but it’s a lifestyle issue. If you’re in [a fundraising] campaign mode, traveling 150 days be cajoled a little bit to even take a look.” ‘ a year, you’re probably not a good advertisement for —Shelly Weiss Storbeck, Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates how to keep work/life balance.” As the Council of Independent Colleges analyzed ACE data to hone in on member institutions, tees’ wariness of people outside of the academy and the inability of an even grimmer picture has emerged: only about one-quarter of these candidates to fully understand and appreciate the culture of their CAOs were interested in the presidency. That surprised CIC a campus.” Only about 13 percent of presidents’ immediate prior staﬀ. As President Richard Ekman notes, in smaller campus envipositions were outside academe, according to the “The American ronments, the CAO sees the role of the presidency close up and that relationship tends to be collegial. A lot of CIC presidents came College President,” an ACE report released in 2007. Presidential searches have always had high stakes, but today’s from the top ranks of advancement, student aﬀairs, and ﬁnance, campus search committees and search ﬁrms have a more challeng- says Hal Hartley, CIC’s senior vice president. With these colleges ing task than ever. To help meet the leadership needs of today and also very much focused on teaching and learning, it was additiontomorrow, new views are emerging about what it means to be at ally surprising that a lesser proportion of CIC presidents are former CAOs, compared to presidents overall. the top and how to get there. If CAOs and other high-ranking administrators were asked in the past year or so for an explanation of their hesitation, the econCandidates Opting Out Search ﬁrm executives pin the average search length at four to omy may well have had an impact on responses. “People are a • Margaret L. Drugovich, president of Hartwick College (N.Y.), previously served as the vice president for strategic communications and university enrollment at Ohio Wesleyan University. She had also served as a health care policy researcher and held positions in institutional research, admissions, ﬁnancial aid, and the president’s oﬃce. • Holden Thorp, chancellor (and an alum) of e University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was a chemistry professor whose career led him to direct a planetarium, head a $17 million fundraising eﬀort, chair a department, and serve as the university’s College of Arts and Sciences dean before beginning his current post. “You can look at all senior cabinet-level positions as leadership in training for the presidency,” says Thomas Courtice, president of Academic Search, which has completed more than 650 presidential searches in higher ed. It’s all about being in a position that allows “a person to get full exposure to both the internal and external skills and ability that equip someone to be a president,” adds John Thornburgh, senior vice president of Witt/Kieﬀer, which conducts about two dozen president or chancellor searches a year. Deans of prominent schools whose jobs include not just academic issues but also fundraising, brand management, and alumni relations are, in essence, serving as “mini presidents” already, he explains. Are higher ed outsiders being hired for the top job? Thornburgh says that is “very rare. It’s frankly a factor of both the commit48 | March 2010 universitybusiness.com http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - March 2010

University Business - March 2010
Contents
Editor’s Note
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Behind the News
Sense of Place
Financial Aid
Human Resources
Viewpoint
Money Matters
Community Colleges as Economic Saviors
Web Content Needs - Solved
Paths to the Presidency
What’s New
End Note

University Business - March 2010