Lessons From a Merger: A Brighter Future by Expanding Our Vision

Some years ago, I sat at a table of leaders from across higher education. As we introduced ourselves, I remarked that I was from the “poorest” institution at the table, with an endowment of about $160 million. I was wrong. I learned that there were institutions represented at the table with endowments of $4 million.

More recently, I was at a similar table of presidents and chancellors and said that I was from “the smallest institution in the country.” Again, I was wrong.

In another group of presidents and chancellors, I was certain I was unique when I said that my college, Shimer, was entering into discussions to move toward a merger or acquisition. Once again, I was wrong: Two others at the table were in similar situations.

These experiences taught me about the environment within which I was leading, as president of tiny Shimer College. What I was experiencing every day, I came to understand, was particular to Shimer, to this moment in the history of higher education, to Shimerians, and to me — and yet, those very same particularities point to what we share. The reality is that no institution and no president, no board and no faculty, are alone facing change. As we co-create the future of higher education, we do it best by recognizing not just our unique histories but also the ways our institutions share in a dynamic, diverse, landscape.

In early 2016, Shimer signed a confidential memorandum of understanding with North Central College, and on June 1 it became the Shimer Great Books School of North Central College. In the intervening period, both North Central College and Shimer College stretched our visions of what was possible to create something new. We entered the world of mergers and acquisitions. This reframing of Shimer ensures that its mission continues in a new venue for a new time: Its curriculum was adopted fully, its faculty became North Central faculty, current students continue at North Central.

As I reflect on the road to this new Shimer, not very long after the close of the “deal,” I see a highly concentrated example of what is happening across American higher education every day. Just as serving as an interim provost and dean of faculty taught me how many people it takes to get faculty and students into the classroom and that higher education is not merely about campuses, this latest process reminded me to be a leader who learns.

The crux of the matter is always how one meets educational mission in financially responsible ways. All too often these seem to be separate or conflicting agendas — business acumen vs. educational success or academic freedom, trustees or administrators vs. faculty and students, market realism vs. ivory-tower Utopia. While we obviously must meet our financial obligations, to do so by sacrificing our educational mission is tantamount to capitulation.

The solution we found at Shimer was hard won not simply because the work was difficult but because we struggled mightily to find a solution that both secured our mission and solved our financial dilemmas. These tensions are at the heart of the role of president. Leading, like teaching, is all about negotiation and navigation — and it is always about change. We meet people — and institutions — where they are and seek to move forward together.

As president during Shimer’s transformation, I found the phrase “heritage of innovation” useful. It reminded me that both the willingness to change and a respect for history matter. One way or another, oversteering means losing sight of our best future. Leading Shimer into the future also meant my moving to a fuller understanding of negotiation as a central aspect of leadership.

Whether focused on transfer pathways, shared resources, consortia, or mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances matter — and successful alliances require continuing negotiation. They require conversation and clarity. Yes, the forest matters. Yes, the trees matter. Yes, listening matters. So, too, does decisive speech. The risk is oversteering in one direction to the exclusion of the other. The risk is selling oneself short.

Because of this, I came to value — and criticize — expertise in new ways. While it is important to remember that other industries regularly merge or acquire, higher education has its own distinctions. In this, people matter.

Regardless of your role — whether staff or faculty member, student, alumnus or president — keeping people in mind means remembering that being acquired is not easy. It means remembering that care of self is part of the job, and that if we care deeply about our institutions — if they are more than merely the providers of a paycheck or an educational credential — both our emotions and our reason are important to our work. Expertise from various areas, including the knowledge carried by those deeply embedded in an institution and in the classroom, makes for a richer process. Respecting that is not always easy. It is, though, always important.

Being acquired can be a business solution to an institutional dilemma, but it is, like all of higher education, also a matter of ethics. Doing it right requires confidentiality but not the abuse of confidentiality, inclusion of the present but a sustained eye on the best future for the institution, and more. To be proud of one’s solution means not only having met the goal of “closing the deal,” but having done so in the right way.

This means, of course, recognizing that such deals are always messy. They are complex — no matter how tiny the institution, how small the budgets or how few people are affected. In the end, what I experienced was not a case study written to resolve well in the end. It was, and is, a human process that involves struggle and hope.

The acquisition of Shimer College by North Central College and its transformation into the Shimer School of Great Books felt unique. It was. It is. And yet, it was not. We live in a time of institutional change: Purdue University purchasing Kaplan University, Boston Conservatory and Berklee merging, and more — we have seen this before and are likely to see it again.

As college mergers and acquisitions become more common, leaders must not inadvertently allow regulatory, legal, financial, and interpersonal demands to narrow our options, restrict our missions, eliminate the characteristic diversity of American educational institutions, or limit the range of futures we can imagine.

Instead, we must recognize these moments of change as something new in the air — something we are making together.

Susan Henking is president emerita of Shimer College.