Presidential Spouses and Partners: Clarifying Expectations
In the abbreviated circumstances of presidential searches, Susan Resneck Pierce asks, how can the spouse or partner ensure a clear understanding of their responsibilities?
Talking Presidents Off the Ledge
Originally published: “Talking Presidents Off the Ledge,” Inside Higher Ed, April 24, 2018 College presidents today are confronting challenges that they did not create and often can’t control, writes Susan Resneck Pierce. I’ve been receiving an...
Becoming Acquainted With Ambivalence
Originally published: “Becoming Acquainted With Ambivalence,” Inside Higher Ed, February 28, 2017 U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s assertion that faculty members tell students what to say and think distorts a basic fact: most professors are...
Hope and Denial are Not Strategies
Originally published: “Hope and Denial are Not Strategies,” Inside Higher Ed, January 31, 2017 Today a great many American colleges and universities — ranging from those that, at least for now, seem reasonably secure to those that are hanging on by...
Shared Governance in Crisis
Originally published: “Shared Governance in Crisis,” Inside Higher Ed, February 16, 2016 The events in recent weeks at Mount St. Mary’s University and Suffolk University have abruptly shattered notions of shared governance, to the detriment of their...
How Did You Get Stuck Being a College President?
Although I believe that being a college president today is even more daunting than it was in 1992, I remain convinced — as do most of the presidents whom I now advise — that being a college president is incredibly rewarding.
Merger Causes and Consequences
Originally published: “Merger Causes and Consequences,” Inside Higher Ed, September 18, 2014 In unprecedented ways, those in higher education leadership positions are now genuinely worried about both the viability of many good colleges and universities and...
A New Partnership
Originally published: “A New Partnership,” Inside Higher Ed, May 5, 2014 Although to my knowledge no one has tracked in a given year much less over time the number of faculty votes of no confidence in their presidents, readers of Inside Higher Ed will...
Lessons from Virginia
Originally published: “Lessons from Virginia” Inside Higher Ed, June 18, 2012 Only University of Virginia Rector (a.k.a. board chair) Helen E. Dragas and Vice Rector Mark J. Kington and perhaps the four other members of the Executive Committee of the Board...