Beyond Incrementalism
In a time of growing and increasingly complex challenges, too many top administrators, leadership teams and boards are focusing on tactics rather than strategy, writes Susan Resneck Pierce.
An Unsentimental Education
The American University of Beirut can serve as an example to a crisis-ridden higher education sector in the United States.
Leadership and Community in Tumultuous Times
Those of us who were college presidents on Sept. 11 understood that our larger society would be changed in significant ways. But even as we all feared an unknown future, including possible new terrorist attacks, we nevertheless sought to help our campuses both mourn the victims of that horrendous act and come together even more deliberately as a community.
5 Years Is Not Fast-Tracking
Far too many campuses don’t make it a priority to immediately deal with what they know can be impending disaster, argues Susan Resneck Pierce.
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.