When Leadership Fails: The Board’s Role

The 2023 American College President’s Report issued by the American Council on Education confirms what the headlines have been revealing for the last several years. At 5.7 years, the average tenure of a college president is the shortest it has ever been, and the turnover rate is the highest. This trend of revolving-door presidencies has destabilized higher education and contributed to the public loss of confidence in the academy. The higher education community has attributed this malaise to the polarization of society and the toxic political environment. Though these problems are great, the college presidency has always been one of society’s most challenging leadership assignments, which I speak to in From Protest to President: A Social Justice Journey Through the Emergence of Adult Education and the Birth of Distance Learning.

Demagogs and ideologues on the right are fearful of ideas and have resorted to banning books and censoring curricula, while zealots on the left are shouting down speakers, promoting “cancel culture,” and demanding to be shielded from threatening speech that “triggers” discomfort. Both sides would destroy the academy as a marketplace for the free exchange of ideas, thoughts, speech, and debate. They are assaulting the basic premise, values, and conditions that higher education must maintain to fulfill its broader obligation to a free society. An education that does not expose people to diverse thoughts, ideas, the creation of new knowledge, and a broader understanding and tolerance of the world we live in isn’t worth having.

The attacks are not new. The ’50s saw McCarthyism, assault by anti-communist fanatics, “blacklisting,” and book banning. The ’60s and ’70s saw civil rights and antiwar demonstrations, as well as the killing of students at Kent State, Jackson State, and Southern University, and campuses were literally on fire. The ’80s and ’90s saw a massive retreat in public funding for higher education from the substantial expansion that took place in the ’60s and ’70s. While the risks to the presidency have increased, the turnover rates never approached the levels seen today.

We are currently facing difficult times, but we should not ignore our own contribution to this turbulence. The predicate for the current decline in the presidency has been the substantial and widespread erosion in the stewardship and effectiveness of boards of trustees. Practically every failure in executive leadership has been accompanied by a failure in the selection, hiring, oversight, and enforcement of accountability by the boards. The decline in institutional effectiveness that leads to the departure of the president is often accompanied by a complicit board that is asleep at the switch, observing the decline, but failing to act in a decisive and timely manner.

Despite the vetting that takes place, any board can make a mistake in a presidential appointment, but when the presidency becomes a revolving door with a series of short-term presidents, the fault lies with the board. There is also the phenomenon of the “serial failure.” I know of one president who had three failed presidencies in a row: forced out at one institution, then another, then another. The first board is entitled to a pass, but not the second and third.

Boards fail in several ways. In the selection process, they too often perceive governance as government. They over-delegate the selection process to the campus and its internal constituents. I know of a formerly strong and well-respected private institution that has experienced considerable decline. They have had five presidents in 18 years. The search committee that selected the new president had 25 members representing every internal constituency at the institution. While I wish the new president good luck, their acceptance of the job represents the triumph of hope over experience. The responsibility for the selection of the president resides exclusively with the board of trustees, and while consultation with the campus is both valuable and important, it cannot be delegated.

Another way boards fail is when they remember their responsibility to support the president but forget their unique obligation to hold the president accountable for the institution’s condition. While the president curates the information received by the board, trustees have an obligation to consider objective data, third-party information, and institutional performance ranked against peer institutions. Enrollment declines, flight of talented staff, deteriorating financial condition, atrophy in the donor base and giving, audit exceptions, and complaints and litigation are all red flags that require board attention and intervention.

While an inattentive board is negligent, a board that is intrusive, micromanages, competes with the president in a manner of executive action, and undermines the president’s authority is also problematic. The golden rule of trusteeship is “noses in, fingers out.” An effective institution requires an alignment of a competent, committed board of trustees, a visionary and capable president leading an academic community united around a commonly understood and clearly articulated vision and mission.

It is always much easier for our community to wring our hands and bemoan the unfairness of external circumstances, but sometimes, to quote a famous movie line: “The call is coming from inside the house.”