Late last fall, the governing board of Virginia Commonwealth University ordered a comprehensive review of the new president, Michael Rao. The review was conducted in private, and speculation and media attention brewed outside those closed doors about why the university had hired an outside consultant to evaluate Mr. Rao just 16 months after he started, and whether the review was linked to reports of controversies in his administration.
Although the Board of Visitors calmed the concerns, saying it had identified strengths and areas of improvement for Mr. Rao and was standing behind him, that kind of negative attention early in a presidency may give other new leaders pause. No one wants a personnel matter to play out in public. But governance experts say a systematic, consistent evaluation process can be helpful for both an institution and its leader, especially in a president’s first year, serving as an early alert to potential conflicts and heading off what might become bigger issues in the future.
At a time of tight budgets and heightened pressure to adapt to a changing environment, boards do not have the luxury of waiting to see if problems emerge.
A growing number of boards are reviewing college presidents on a systematic basis, and some are doing it earlier than they used to. Governance experts say several factors are behind the trend: an expectation that boards are responsible for a president’s performance; greater demand by regulators and the public for accountability; and the rising share of board members with backgrounds in business, where regular performance evaluations are the norm.
At their best, these evaluations—whether annual reviews or more-extensive ones done every few years—help boards fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities and ensure that their institutions remain on track in meeting financial and strategic goals. But such evaluations also carry pitfalls, say those who have conducted them. Done in the wrong way or at the wrong time—in the midst of a crisis, for example, or when the board is considering firing the president—they can harm the reputation of a president, the institution, or its governing board.
Presidential failures can be embarrassing for boards, says Rita Bornstein, a former president of Rollins College and an expert on the academic presidency. She says governing bodies are showing greater interest in assessing more aspects of a president’s performance, such as how well the leader works with and is viewed by others, and in hearing more voices in reviews—healthy developments if boards don’t overreach in their evaluations.
“This is absolutely coming,” says Ms. Bornstein. “Not everybody does it well, but at least they’re doing it.”
‘Candid Feedback’
In the past, performance reviews of presidents were viewed with a skepticism and concern that they could undermine the presidency or board authority, says Merrill P. Schwartz, director of research at the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. Now, with increased pressure for academic boards and leaders to show they are accountable, reviews are considered in a more positive light.
“It’s a great way to gather information on the institution and its leadership,” says Ms. Schwartz. And for presidents, who live in a fishbowl but don’t always receive constructive criticism, an evaluation is an opportunity to get information that can help them do a better job. Although a close examination of their shortcomings can be difficult to hear, “most presidents appreciate having candid feedback,” she says.
In the past 10 years, annual reviews for college presidents have become the norm; 90 percent of higher-education institutions perform such evaluations, according to a 2008 survey by the governing-boards association. Fuller reviews, which can be time consuming and involve an outside evaluator who interviews faculty, staff, and students, are less common but becoming more so. Among private institutions, 61 percent of presidents receive comprehensive evaluations; at public colleges and universities, 53 percent of presidents are evaluated that way.
In an annual review, a president typically does a self-evaluation of how he or she met specific goals in such areas as fund raising, budgeting, and enrollment, followed by a review from the board chair or a committee. Comprehensive reviews may be done every three to six years and take a broader look, examining issues such as whether the president has the support of faculty, students, and lawmakers, and whether he or she communicates a strong vision for the institution and is effective in creating an environment that encourages change. The evaluator may also look at whether the president has developed a strategic plan and is following it. These type of evaluations can cost $5,000 to $25,000 and up, depending on the number of people the consultant interviews.
Having a review process for the president can also help a board set compensation. According to the association, which recently started offering a consulting service that performs comprehensive reviews for colleges and universities, a thoughtful review of compensation linked to assessment can satisfy regulators looking at executive pay. It also provides a good way for institutions to develop and retain good leaders. Last month, trustees at Ohio State University approved a salary increase and performance bonus for the president, E. Gordon Gee, after an annual performance review found improvements in student retention, graduation rates, and the freshman-class profile, as well as increased research support and good fiscal management.
One “don’t” in setting up a review is imposing a review method and criteria on the president, governance experts say. Instead, boards and presidents should negotiate what will be evaluated in a review. That’s going on now at Rutgers University, where the board and the president, Richard L. McCormick, are discussing what to include in a comprehensive evaluation of his performance and how the university is progressing toward its goals. Mr. McCormick says he expects the assessment process to be set early this year.
Ann Die Hasselmo, president of the American Academic Leadership Institute, which conducts presidential evaluations, says the best time to set a policy for evaluations may be in the first few months of a president’s tenure, when there is an abundance of good will on all sides and an opportunity for the board and the president to set institutional and leadership priorities.
“It’s about clarity of expectations on both sides,” says Ms. Hasselmo. When a president and a board aren’t clear in the beginning of their relationship about what they expect from each other, things can sour. “At that point,” she says, “an evaluation is not likely to make something sour turn to sweet.”
Early Reviews
When Christopher B. Howard was coming to the end of his first year as president of Hampden-Sydney College, in Virginia, he and ThomasN. Allen, chairman of the Board of Trustees, decided to do a 360-degree review of Mr. Howard’s performance. Both men came from a corporate background where the so-called 360-degree reviews, which include input from the employees who report to a leader, are common. Mr. Howard underwent such a review when he worked at General Electric and received comprehensive reviews when he served in the military.
“It made sense to me,” he says. Because there is less tolerance today for operational mistakes by colleges, boards need to trust their leaders but also verify they’re doing the job, he says.
Mr. Allen says he and Mr. Howard wanted to identify any concerns early on. “Not ever having been president, he was anxious for feedback,” says Mr. Allen, who asked Mr. Howard to give him a similar review of his first year as board chair.
Mr. Allen decided to do the presidential review himself, to keep its scope more manageable. He solicited written evaluations of the president from the seven people who report directly to Mr. Howard, then followed up with them. The process required those employees to trust that he would keep their comments confidential. It also helped to have a president who was confident enough about his leadership abilities not to approach the review defensively.
In the end, Mr. Allen gave Mr. Howard one sheet of paper, divided in half. On the left were the president’s strengths; on the right, the areas he needed to work on. Both men declined to be more specific but said there were far more strengths than challenges. Still, Mr. Howard says, “I learned a lot about what came on the right side of the paper.”
One item on the list he was able to immediately improve on: running meetings. Based on the feedback from others, Mr. Howard made adjustments so that his cabinet meetings became more efficient and effective. The change has been noticeable, he says.
Keeping It Private
For comprehensive reviews to work well, say those who have done them, confidentiality among the responders is key. Otherwise people may fear repercussions and might not feel comfortable giving honest answers.
In Nevada, state law requires personnel sessions involving university presidents to be held publicly. In 2009 an evaluation of David B. Ashley, president of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, demonstrated what can go wrong when an assessment occurs in the open.
The highly charged public session, which came after a series of public disputes between Mr. Ashley and the chancellor of the system at the time, ended in a humiliating board meeting that included hours of criticism of Mr. Ashley as ineffective. He was accused of skipping alumni events, of being not visible enough on and off the campus, and of being a poor communicator. At the end of the meeting, Mr. Ashley lost his job.
John D. Welty, president of California State University at Fresno, had been brought in to conduct Mr. Ashley’s written evaluation (he was reportedly paid $7,500, plus travel expenses). That report was largely positive. But when the board met to discuss it, there was a major disconnect between Mr. Welty’s positive report and the negative testimony during the public discussion. Some board members questioned Mr. Welty’s work as an evaluator.
Mr. Welty, who has received comprehensive evaluations at Cal State, says his review was an accurate depiction of what he found. But a public evaluation “makes it more difficult to deal with issues with the president,” he says. As for doing another review in a place where the process was so open, he says, “I would have some reservations.”
Others might, too.
In general, poorly handled evaluations can damage a president’s career or the reputation of an institution or its governing body, says Jan Greenwood, a search consultant whose company also conducts presidential evaluations. In cases in which it appears that a president has been treated poorly or an evaluation was not conducted professionally, a college may have a difficult time attracting presidential candidates in the future.
“Who’s going to want to work there?” she says.
