Trusteeship - November/December 2020 - 27

Higher education crisis leadership
necessitates flexibility and rapid response
facilitated by a "culture of preparedness
that allows for agile and swift-yet also
sound and thoughtful, values-based, and
stakeholder-centered-decision making
when crisis situations occur."
to be known, and then report back to stakeholders.
Presidents can communicate consistently to all stakeholder
groups and any messages issued by representatives of governing or
institutionally related foundation boards should also be consistent
with institutional communications. Former Texas A&M executive
director of university relations Cynthia Lawson, whose tenure
coincided the collapse of a bonfire in 1999 that killed 12 students
and injured another 27, observes that inconsistency can be damaging: "inconsistent messages can, and will, increase anxiety and
quickly undermine the credibility of an institution's experts."8 Public communication should also be consistent with statements made
privately, as exchanges and documents will likely find their way
into the light during or after a crisis, especially at public universities and colleges subject to sunshine laws. If institutional direction
or crisis management objectives change, a president, in partnership
with the board chair as appropriate, can describe the rationale for
shifting focus to avoid the perception of inconsistency.
Timing and Pacing
To sustain trust, leaders can respond to critical incidents quickly and
share information frequently with stakeholders as a crisis unfolds.
After critical incidents, leaders who communicate a response rapidly
can forestall or at least temper the proliferation of misinformation.
Social media and 24/7 news cycles enable almost instantaneous
comment from any perspective. If institutional leaders hesitate, they
miss the opportunity to tell the story of crisis events. In the absence
of communication from presidents, other people will fill the information gap, often speculating or sharing misinformation.

Tell Your Crisis Story
The story of a college or university is disrupted during a crisis. Stakeholders facing chaos and uncertainty grasp at fragments of information to shape a new story: projecting, speculating, and rationalizing.
As crisis events unfold and stakeholders build new stories about
institutions responding to critical incidents and associated impacts,
leaders' statements and actions contribute to the emerging public
narrative. A significant moment in an institution's saga, a crisis can
shape perception and stakeholder action for years or even decades.
In the absence of a plausible story about how an institution handles a
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crisis, others will craft new narratives based on conjecture.
Presidents, trustees, and foundation board members applying
the principles outlined above can sustain relationships of trust with
stakeholders. By doing so, they can shape the story of their institutions' futures. Start by asking:
■ Are we communicating with empathy? Honestly and consistently? Quickly and frequently?
■ Are we listening to stakeholders, learning about their crisis experiences, and using that learning to inform our crisis response?
■ What decisions are on the horizon that will need to be interpreted for stakeholders?
■ What story will be told about how our institution (or institutionally related foundation) handled the crisis? How might that story
influence the likelihood of successfully achieving the institutional
future we envision?
Any one of these principles for building and sustaining trust
practised in isolation can lead to failure. A leader focusing wholly
on empathizing with stakeholders may be paralyzed when faced
with the decision to reduce an annual operating budget by 20 percent. Disregarding collective bargaining processes in the spirit of
operating transparently can backfire. Combining efforts to build
and sustain trust with thorough risk management and strategic
leadership will increase the chance that those you lead will be
ready to follow when tough decisions are necessary to ensure your
institution's future may be bright, even in these dark times.
Amanda Walker serves as the vice president for advancement at The Evergreen
State College and as the executive director of the college's institutionally related
foundation. She also facilitates the executive team's work, leads strategic
planning, and advises college leadership. This fall she will defend her PhD
dissertation, a multicase study of university presidents resigning during highprofile crises, at University College London. Email: amanda.walker.14@ucl.ac.uk.

Endnotes
1. Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz, "'I Don't Trust My University.' Readers Share Their Fears
of Returning to Campus in the Fall.," The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 12, 2020,
https://www.chronicle.com/article/i-dont-trust-my-university-readers-share-their-fearsof-returning-to-campus-in-the-fall/.
2. Lindsay Ellis, "UT System's McRaven: College Leadership 'Herculean' Task," HoustonChronicle.Com, May 1, 2018, https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/education/campus-chronicles/article/UT-System-s-McRaven-College-leadership-12877779.php.
3. Ruth Serven and Ashley Reese, "In Homecoming Parade, Racial Justice Advocates Take
Different Paths," Columbia Missourian, October 10, 2015, http://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/in-homecoming-parade-racial-justice-advocates-take-different-paths/
article_24c824da-6f77-11e5-958e-fb15c6375503.html.
4. Edinboro University Faculty, "An Open Letter to the Edinboro Community (Draft),"
March 2018.
5. Ralph A. Gigliotti, Crisis Leadership in Higher Education: Theory and Practice (New
Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2020), 130.
6. Michaela J. Kerrissey and Amy C. Edmondson, "What Good Leadership Looks like
during this Pandemic," Harvard Business Review, April 13, 2020, https://hbr.org/2020/04/
what-good-leadership-looks-like-during-this-pandemic.
7. Gretchen M. Bataille and Diana I. Cordova, eds., Managing the Unthinkable: Crisis Preparation and Response for Campus Leaders, (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2014), 158.
8. Cynthia Lawson, "Crisis Communication," in Campus Crisis Management: A Comprehensive Guide to Planning, Prevention, Response, and Recovery, ed. Eugene L. Zdziarski II
et al. (San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, 2007), 97-119.

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https://www.chronicle.com/article/i-dont-trust-my-university-readers-share-their-fears-of-returning-to-campus-in-the-fall/ https://www.houstonchronicle.com/ https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/education/campus-chronicles/article/UT-System-s-McRaven-College-leadership-12877779.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/ https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/education/campus-chronicles/article/UT-System-s-McRaven-College-leadership-12877779.php http://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/in-homecoming-parade-racial-justice-advocates-take-different-paths/article_24c824da-6f77-11e5-958e-fb15c6375503.html http://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/in-homecoming-parade-racial-justice-advocates-take-different-paths/article_24c824da-6f77-11e5-958e-fb15c6375503.html http://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/in-homecoming-parade-racial-justice-advocates-take-different-paths/article_24c824da-6f77-11e5-958e-fb15c6375503.html https://hbr.org/2020/04/what-good-leadership-looks-like-during-this-pandemic https://hbr.org/2020/04/what-good-leadership-looks-like-during-this-pandemic http://www.AGB.ORG

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