The average tenure of the college president has shrunk. Yes, again.
Typical presidents have been in their current job for 5.9 years, according to the results of the American Council on Education’s latest survey of the profession, published on Friday. That’s down from 6.5 years in 2016 and 8.5 years in 2006.
What’s more, a majority of those currently serving don’t think they will be in their current role in five years. And those presidents planning to depart aren’t leaving for some other college’s top job. Instead, they are looking at possible consultant roles, returning to the faculty, or working in a nonprofit outside of higher education, according to the survey, which ACE conducts every five years. The survey was emailed to presidents at 3,091 colleges and universities, with 1,075 responding. That response rate was down 15 percentage points, which the survey’s authors attributed to its being out to presidents for a shorter time than in previous years and no paper copies mailed.
Among the reasons for leaving, according to the survey: The Covid-19 pandemic and the growing political polarization in higher education have taken a toll on presidents.
“Covid was hard on presidents,” said Linda A. Livingstone, president of Baylor University. “There’s a lot of political pressure from all sides. It just wore out some presidents. It’s a challenging world to function in.”
All that pressure has presidents thinking they aren’t long for the corner office.
Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said they planned to step down in the next five years, with 25 percent of surveyed presidents saying they planned to leave in the next year or two. That’s an increase from five years ago, when 22 percent said they were planning to leave in a year or two and 32 percent said they were planning to leave in three to five years. Those who plan to leave in the next year have been in office for an average of 6.7 years and are, on average, 61.7 years old.
Only 39 percent of those thinking they will be out in the next five years say they will retire. Departing presidents who aren’t retiring are more likely to try to become a consultant than they are to pursue a similar role at a different college — 27 percent compared with 23 percent. Sixteen percent are aiming for work at a nonprofit or philanthropic entity.
The average president signs a five-year contract, said James H. Finkelstein, a professor emeritus at George Mason University who studies college presidents and their contracts. That hasn’t changed much in the past 15 years, according to his study of contracts.
The shorter average tenure has a major effect on how presidents behave when they walk into the administration building for the first time. Out are months-long listening tours. In is rapid action.
“You have to listen faster and learn faster and then identify those two or three areas you can have a significant impact on in a shorter amount of time,” said Livingstone, who started at Baylor in 2017.
Not only is making a mark quicker an imperative if a president has only five years, but having a big impact quickly can be a route to extending a tenure past the average, she said.
Old, White, and Male
The greater turnover hasn’t seemed to chip away at white men’s hold on the presidency.
“Over the last five years, we haven’t moved the needle on what our presidents look like,” said Hollie Chessman, director of practice and research in ACE’s Education Futures Lab, which conducted the survey. “They are older. They are men. They are white.”
Men make up 67 percent of college presidents, with women holding the top job at 33 percent of colleges — up about 10 percentage points since 2006. Seventy-two percent of presidents are white. Twenty-eight percent of presidents are nonwhite.
Student bodies are much more diverse. In 2021, white students made up about 53 percent of all students, according to federal data. In the same year, female students made up about 58 percent of all students.
Female presidents come to the job later in life, the survey data shows. Male presidents, on average, start thinking about becoming a president at age 43.6 and land the job at age 51.7. Female presidents, however, start aspiring to be a president at age 46.9 and land the job at age 52.8. Men of color are the youngest to start aspiring to a presidency, at age 41.5, but take until age 50.4 to land the job, a gap of nearly nine years. Women of color aspire to the presidency at age 45.7 and are appointed at age 51.6.
Livingstone isn’t surprised that women are, on average, older when they land a presidency.
“Sometimes you see an expectation that women need more experience before they are ready,” said Livingstone, who was the only female president in the Big 12 Conference when she took office at Baylor.
Women who reach the presidency tend to come through the traditional route of faculty to administration to presidency, the survey showed. Men can take more varied paths to the presidency, the survey found. Think of politicians like the former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, now the University of Florida’s president.
Diversifying the presidency is going to take a lot of work at lower levels of administration, the survey’s authors said.
“We have to take a close look at the level of support those individuals are getting on the pathway to the presidency,” said Danielle Melidona, an analyst with ACE’s Education Futures Lab.
That means looking at levels low in the administrative pecking order, from assistant deans to associate provosts, Livingstone said. As those ranks diversify, the upper ranks will follow, she said.
But more than just that needs to happen, Chessman said. “If we are going to diversify the position, we are not going to do it with just the provost moving up,” she said. “We have to have the conversation about why don’t we see more women coming” in the pipeline.
That same thought extends to having a higher percentage of minority presidents, she said.
“The question is, How do we make the presidency look more like our students?”
