how to become president of a university

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May 16, 2001:

How to Choose a College President
By Harold W. Dodds, president, emeritus of Princeton University

This essay was first published in PAW in 1962 and, according to the editor's note accompanying the article, was written out of 24 years as Princeton's President and subsequent wide research on a Carnegie grant. The essay was based on the final chapter of President Dodds's book, The Academic President - Educator or Caretaker? (McGraw Hill 1962). His words are still relevant 40 years later.

By unanimous agreement trustees consider the selection of a new president their most important and critical responsibility. On the basis of national averages it is a duty they are called upon to perform once in eight to ten years. However, in many institutions the normal term of office is more like fifteen to twenty years, and individual trustees may perform this vital function only once in a lifetime. Hence they have no previous experience with the problem. It is provocative to reflect that if there is any correlation between the length of a president's tenure and his success in the office, the selection of a new president has to be undertaken most frequently by those boards who have done the poorest jobs.

Informed trustees approach the task with some trepidation, even those with experience in finding new heads for their business enterprises. Members of corporation boards are accustomed to taking calculated risks, but not in calculating the risks to be run in selection of a new academic president. Attractive candidates seem to be few in number, difficult to discover; and indices of future success - let alone past success - are hard to identify and even harder to evaluate.

Unlike academia, business has its executive-development programs. It is expected of the chief executive that by his retirement he will have developed several successor possibilities for consideration by the directors. Indeed it may be considered a black mark on both his record and that of the board if it has to go outside to find a successor. In business a man seldom becomes a chief executive or even a second in command without prior qualifying experience in executive positions. Accordingly the pool of possibilities, both within and without the corporation, is more visible than in academia; the criteria are more specific, and capacity to meet them is more readily appraised on the basis of past performance. To become president is the ambition of many a businessman from the moment he qualifies as junior executive; it represents no compromise in his career or in what he has hoped to become.

Unwilling Candidates?

Taking academia as a whole, it seems more usual to name a new president from outside than to promote from within. Nevertheless, deans or other officers of administration form a natural pool of candidates for calls elsewhere. Naturally, also, the trustees' roster of possibilities always includes the names of presidents of other colleges or universities.

Whether members of the faculty other than officers of administration shy away from the college presidency as much as many assert (some observers say that the majority would like to be president but are unwilling to admit it), the truth remains that they are not career-oriented toward a presidency. Many have had little or no chance to display whatever executive talents they possess; the professional success of a teacher-scholar relates to capacities which have nothing to do with administration. Even deans have usually had but limited contact with the full scope of responsibilities that a president carries.

In academia trustees must seek out good candidates; there is no readymade supply on which to draw. They need not despair, however; if they pursue their search thoroughly, intelligently, they are in a better position to name the right man than is the faculty. Provided they have been dutiful trustees, they have been in touch with the whole range of presidential functions and can estimate the diverse capacities required.

If the departing president enjoys the confidence of the trustees, they will naturally turn to him for counsel. He should be most cautious about giving it. The less he has to do with choosing his successor, the better. His perspective is bound to be warped by a human preference for a successor who will follow out policies which have become dear to his heart, whereas the institution may most need a radically different personality and a new set of policies.

The retiring incumbent can help by urging his board to begin looking for a new man long enough in advance to assure a smooth transition and avoid an interregnum. He can counsel it on methods for prosecuting the search; he can direct it to persons qualified to suggest nominees for consideration, although he should be extremely circumspect in passing on their merits and demerits, he can advise on methods for bringing the faculty into consultation; he should be willing to answer questions of prospective candidates but should not initiate conversations with them. Throughout the whole process he will do well to remember that the less responsibility he has for selecting a successor, even one who turns out to be an excellent choice, the happier he will probably be afterward.

Massive Fund Raising

Let us now consider how boards should prepare themselves to search for a new chief executive. From interviews with trustees over a considerable span of years we are convinced that too often they neglect to clarify at the start the target they have in mind for their institution and what they should expect from their president other than money-raising and speechmaking. Particularly is this true if they have not been led to interest themselves in educational policies.

Clarification embraces a clear decision on whether they as a board are willing to make massive personal efforts to raise funds to implement their hopes for the institution or whether they expect to unload this burden onto the president. Do they want to change the direction and quality of the institution's growth? Do they truly desire to move to greater excellence? Are they willing to pay for betterment in terms of criticism and opposition often shrill - by alumni and certain elements of the public which inevitably resent change? If they want the institution to be great, are they willing to support academic freedom against hostile pressures, or do they prefer a president who will be "reasonable"? Do they really want a president who will stretch them rather than one who will make life easy for them?

Once trustees decide what they want their institution to become, they are ready to assemble a roster of names. Among the most common sources are officers of foundations and educational organizations who are in professional touch with educators over broad areas. Successful presidents of other institutions often are able to suggest worthwhile names, although human nature being what it is, they cannot be expected to be eager to reveal possibilities on their own staff.

Trustees will naturally look first to the possibilities in their own administration and faculty, and they may find there the man of their choice. If they think they have done so, they may also, because he is an insider, feel they have a fairly intimate acquaintance with him. They will still, as with outsiders, check opinions by interviews with past and present colleagues, foundation officials, officers of educational organizations who have had contact with the candidate, and, finally, when he has achieved a place on the short, final list, with the individual himself.

To build a long roster is easy. Suggestions, solicited and unsolicited, will come from many quarters. Checking the qualifications of even a short list is laborious and exhausting. Plainly, boiling down the long list to a short one should be an early order of business. Trustees desperate from the fatigue and frustration of prolonged examination of many names are apt to settle upon one man more or less indiscriminately and spend years regretting it. The energy required to build even a short list of impressive candidates is enormous; none of it should be drained off in wild-goose chases after second-raters. Remember that when a committee considers five men, each one against each one of the others, there are 10 pairs to be compared; but when there are ten men to be compared, each with another, 45 pairings are required; with twenty candidates the number of pairs rises to 190. Concentration on a short list may mean that a good dark horse is overlooked, but the controlling factor is the vital advantage of thoroughness in applying the chosen criteria to the select category of top candidates.

Before considering qualifications for which trustees should seek, let us clear away some other aspects of the process. Avoid snap judgments, even when the pressure of time seems great. A skeptical, microscopical investigation of any individual who emerges as a serious candidate is of prime importance. Presidential failures may sometimes be attributed to trustee captivation by an agreeable social presence, by ability to make a speech, or by the fact that a man "looks like a college president."

When a prospect achieves a strong place on the short list, the time has come to seek a personal interview. If he declines, the list will be shorter by one name, and no harm done. Rumors spring up from nowhere to embarrass individuals involved and may even cause a likely candidate to deny publicly that he would take the post if proffered. Therefore, to reduce loose talk, the interview should probably be held off campus. While it should be made clear early that the interview is not an offer of the post, there is no point in playing coy with a prospect by pretending that it is merely for the purpose of considering names of others. If he is bright enough to be president, he will know the reason for the interview. How much it reveals will depend upon the manner in which it is conducted. Any candidate meriting serious consideration, whether from within or without, should be willing to submit to courteous but severe questioning. The interviewers should not eschew discussion of controversial topics. If some tensions arise, the discussion has provided at least one opportunity to put the man on his mettle and to test his reaction to stress.

He in turn should be encouraged to ask the most searching questions. A candidate, particularly one from outside, not intimately acquainted with the institution, who does not probe into the situation should be examined for overeagerness; he is not apt to be a wise choice. The questions he asks and the conditions he imposes may reveal much about his suitability, including his general sympathy with the institution's place in the structure of higher education, or lack of it, and what he thinks should be done about it.

Keep the essential criteria few and significant. Probably no college head has ever lived who succeeded in satisfying all the "essentials." Sometimes the job specifications are so detailed, so mutually exclusive, that it is folly to expect any human being to meet them. The basic principle is that, since the institution is organized for thought, competence in the field of ideas comes first, a competence more comprehensive and more rare than capacity for scholarship in a field of learning. If a president functioned in business operations alone, his role would be simpler and the job specifications clearer.

Take Me To Your...

Not long ago we were consulted by a trustee of a prominent university in search of a new president. In response to the question "What are you looking for?" he began to enumerate the job specifications as he saw them. His institution was a multiservice state university with a large and diversified staff. Therefore the new man, he believed, must first of all be a good administrator in the business sense. Next, he must be able to live on good terms with the state legislature, so that it would be liberal with appropriations. He must be able to sustain his popularity with the alumni, so that they would be generous. He should be a good speaker, reasonably religious, etc. We interrupted to ask, "Since the end product of your university is education and scholarship, did it ever occur to you that a man's educational experience and promise as an educational leader were important?"

The reply that bounced back was frank. "Gosh, I never thought of that!"

The most promising place to look for a person with the capacity for educational and intellectual leadership is within academia itself. For the time being at least, more and more trustees are coming to this viewpoint. We trust that it will become permanent. Presidents have succeeded despite the lack of an academic background, but they were men of truly intellectual interests. Nevertheless, the odds are against an outsider. A strong and abiding conviction that in serving higher education he is ministering to a supremely great enterprise may motivate a president recruited from another occupation, but it is more likely to glow in the heart of one who has made education his lifework. For one thing, he is less likely to view his office either as a pleasant post to which to retire or as a way station or stepping stone to serve until a more attractive opening develops elsewhere. We have pointed out that he has a better chance of being accepted by the faculty as an intellectual peer than one coming from an unrelated vocation. Without such acceptance he may find his efforts to lead bitterly opposed.

The man from an academic background is more knowledgeable about the subtle ways in which a college or university operates. "He is one," writes a seasoned observer, "who can fight, for example, the battle of the budget with the ideals of higher education always before him." He will not suffer the frustration of one prominent public figure who thought that as a university president his work would have to do with young people but who, after a year in office, ruefully remarked that he had not yet talked to a student. A man of academic experience would not have required tutoring on how to get in touch with students.

Few errors are more self-defeating than for a new president, innocent of academic experience, to tell the faculty, "I'm not an educator, but . . ." and then confidently proceed to announce his program of action. At the other extreme is the one, also a newcomer to academia, who is so humble or solicitous of faculty favor that, for fear that he will be rebuffed, he is unwilling to venture into the academic arena at all. Sooner or later the faculty will condemn the poor fellow as intellectually bankrupt and grow restless for a more educationally dynamic head.

Sagacious trustees seek a man who, if he has not demonstrated it, possesses potential managerial ability, one element of which is a certain feeling for financial and budget matters that enables one quickly to discern the financial implications of a proposal. Presidents who feel they lack it report that they are under a handicap. Seasoned trustees desire a leader who will "pick up problems without bouncing them back on the board," but they should not, of course, rest content with these talents alone.

One criterion of interest to all boards is the matter of age, inseparable from consideration of term of office. This is the day of young men, and to a lesser degree of young women, in executive posts in both business and academia. The objection to a young man as a prospective president. is that the institution will be committed to retaining him after his energy and enthusiasm have ebbed. Trustees are kindly people, and for presidents, even more than for deans who have grown gray in a deanship, there are few honorable exits. In most cases their days have been too filled with administrative duties to have allowed them to keep abreast of their old fields of learning A return to the faculty is difficult, if not impossible, and is replete with embarrassment for one who does. Nevertheless, there are times when, in the interest of the institution, trustees must be cruel toward a president who has run down.

There is considerable theoretical sentiment favoring fixed terms for presidents, but we can trace in the lives of either successful or unsuccessful no pattern of an optimum term. Circumstances and individuals vary too widely. In an earlier chapter we observed in the lives of the seven giant academicians of the past a wide variation in the terminal years of their incumbency. Some otherwise eminent presidents faded toward the end of long terms, raising the question "How long is too long for a president to serve?"

Building faculty strength

However, the records of successful presidents refute a fairly popular thesis that all one can hope to accomplish must be done in the first five years. We believe that, given average good fortune, the competent man will find that the later years prove to be periods of increasing influence and prestige, rather than ones of diminishing returns.

It is relatively easy to agree on a table of qualifications. But how to weigh them in the scale of total competence and measure the degree to which a candidate possesses them is a reasonable question that we have frequently been asked by trustee and faculty committees in search of a president. Unfortunately there is no short cut, no mystique, to obviate the methodical collection and assessment of information bearing on individuals on the short list.

Presidents of other colleges or universities who may be susceptible to a call provide a certain reservoir of candidates, and here some pertinent evidence is available. While growth in size these days is not an index of presidential success, growth in physical resources measured by new libraries, new classrooms, new laboratories, and increased endowment and other sources of income is. It is important to know whether growth has correctly been apportioned between the building program and growth in faculty strength, remembering, however, that adequate physical resources are essential to effective teaching and scholar ship.

To appraise in concrete terms what a president has himself contributed to building a faculty during his term is difficult. Nonetheless, certain estimations are possible, and much can be learned of his success in his present institution from the opinions of informed observers. Is the morale of the faculty high? Do its members exude a conviction that they are on a winning team? Are they conscious of identifiable achievements under their present administration? Is this feeling shared by colleagues in sister institutions? The reasons that faculty members resign to go elsewhere are extremely pertinent. A president of an institution which is known to be building faculty strength naturally exposes himself to the loss of members by calls elsewhere, and this is a good sign. However, if he is unable to hold those whom the institution would like to retain and for whom lines of promotion are open, and if he has failed to attract equally good replacements, the reasons should be clearly established. If the fault lies not with him but with certain circumstances beyond his control, it should be known.

When trustees turn to members of the faculty who have not been involved in administration, appraisal is more difficult, for they do not work under the floodlight of criticism that plays on presidents and deans. Nevertheless, signs auguring success or failure are at hand, although of course none is infallible. Have a professor's colleagues entrusted increasingly important responsibilities to him in the form of crucial committee chairmanships and the like? Has he shown a sense of organization and a gift for leadership by pulling his weight in faculty governance? However, activity in faculty governance should be examined to make sure that he is not just an "old pro" who would rather attend a committee meeting than work on a lecture or a piece of research. If he has been chairman of a department, did it prosper under him? Do his peers in other colleges or universities esteem him well? Have they shown it by electing him to important offices in their professional organization or by awards of other professional honors? Is his advice sought by the administration? When the administration has delegated trouble-shooting missions to him, has he fulfilled them well? This is the day of team research and of many calls to serve as consultant to nonacademic enterprises and agencies. How has the professor succeeded in such relationships? Have they resulted in respect for him as a leader of a group as well as a scientist or scholar in his own right?

College vs. University?

How seriously is a good job as head of a college to be taken in predicting success in a university? From the relatively small proportion of university presidents chosen from the ranks of college presidents, it would seem that trustees and faculties do not consider the experience of much significance. Apparently they think that, as a group, college presidents lack the administrative capacity for the presidency of a more complex organization. Many college presidents do not aspire to be university presidents, because they have no desire to exchange their post for one in which sheer size is a burden - one which requires the ability to keep many balls in the air, which calls for delegating to others work they like to do themselves, and which spells less intimate contacts with individual students and faculty.

Nevertheless, university trustees should not cavalierly pass over the reservoir of candidates to be found in the colleges. A college presidency makes its demands on one's capacity for sustained energy and tests one's emotional toughness, reaction to pressures, and capability to surmount the crises that challenge the number one man as no other member of the organization is challenged. A seasoned college president has accumulated experience with a goodly number of situations similar to those met by his colleagues in the larger universities. He has had an opportunity to make the emotional transition from teacher to chief executive, to prove that he can live with the job. His ability to gain the confidence of others and to attain goals has been tested. One president who made a successful transition from a college to a university testifies that the experience in a simpler environment introduced him to the problem of public relations, taught him how to deal with nonacademic people, how trustees act, and how the president should behave toward them, together with experience in business operation and finance. All these matters had been a closed book to him as a professor.

At the same time, one's record as a college president must be carefully assessed. One may have been notably effective in that role and still be miscast in a university situation, where a habit of "doing it yourself" must yield to the habit of doing it through intermediaries and the ability to find satisfaction in it.

Don't Ask Alumni

While trustees, even if they want to, cannot divest themselves of legal and moral accountability for the election of a new president, other people are also concerned. Consultation with them will facilitate the new president's dealings with his several constituencies.

Alumni have a stake in the selection. Many trustees are alumni, so that their valid interests are already pretty well assured of a hearing. Nevertheless, it is natural to consult representative leaders among the alumni, and many are truly concerned about education. Yet on the whole alumni are a heterogeneous group whose specifications for a new president crystallize around their personal views. Vociferous pressure blocs may emerge, not infrequently organized around athletics, but knowledgeable trustees will know how to deal with them. With all due respect for alumni interests, it is a mistake for a board to involve the alumni association in any formal manner. One board we know announced to the alumni body that suggestions from them would be welcome. Soon the local associations picked up the ball and began to send in resolutions supporting particular candidates. The name most frequently urged was the name favored by both trustees and faculty, but this was a piece of good luck. Rarely does a candidate enjoy this degree of popular support.

Faculty Factions

More than the alumni or any other group, the faculty and non-academic officers have a personal stake in the choice of their new chief. The growing practice of trustee-faculty consultation on a new president gives better results than either side may produce alone, but it must be well conducted. Some have feared that the custom would encourage factionalism within the faculty, and on occasion it has had this effect, but, if well managed, it can have exactly the opposite effect. More than one president has reported that it would have been helpful to him if the faculty had enjoyed a voice in his selection.

If trustees correctly dissect their expectations of a new president, the essential qualifications for the leadership that they seek will emerge almost of themselves. We realize that our prescription for the ideal college president seems to call for a superman. However, if he succeeds in arranging his work so as to devote half time to education, a less than "super" man can fill it.

Certainly no one, even if it were physically possible, is going to follow all the admonitions herein. Just as his institution differs markedly from the usual business and industrial organization, so the college or university president needs to possess and develop abilities not called for in the average career. So, also, we have seen that the dominant qualifications required may vary between college and university, as well as among categories of colleges and universities themselves.

Nevertheless, there are constants to be sought for in all college and university presidents. Because the president is expected to be the chief interpreter of the institution, the trustees or regents should satisfy themselves of his ability to represent it with dignity and in a manner to generate confidence. No chief executive succeeds who so needs to be loved that he avoids stirring things up, but a dash of the homely virtue of getting along with people is indispensable. The president who cannot suffer tolerantly, if not gladly, others who disagree or who goes off "half-cocked" when others cannot think as rapidly as he will not inspire confidence. On later evidence such a one may have to beat an embarrassing retreat from positions held stubbornly or taken too hastily. A sense of humor protects against being bruised too easily and helps relax tension both within himself and within others. That physical and nervous health and a high level of energy are desirable in any president goes without saying. Sagacity is a prime requirement, of course, but there is no substitute for ability to attend, if need be, more dinners than there are days in the week. As one adviser of many presidents once remarked, with pardonable hyperbole, "It is desirable that he have the wisdom of Solomon and the heart of a lion, but it is indispensable that he have the digestion of a goat."

Office, Not The Man

Above everything, trustees and regents should avoid becoming enamored of prominent names, eminent public figures who may welcome a try at being a college president, only to become disillusioned and bored in the job. This is no place for a retired governor or general per se or a minister whose congregation or bishop wants to kick him upstairs. An equal chance is taken in the selection of a famous scholar merely for the sake of the prestige he will bring. The man to be desired is one whose fame will be made by how well he performs in the office. If he possesses the capacity for growth, if he is not an uncompromising educational sectarian unable to integrate sharply differing views, the job will make the man.