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From: Rick Seltzer
Subject: Daily Briefing: Do college presidents have enough EQ?
Good morning, and welcome to Monday, September 16. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.
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Good morning, and welcome to Monday, September 16. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.
It’s been a year of leadership crises for higher ed, even by the sector’s soap-opera standards. So take note of a new effort to understand whether steely technocrats or those overflowing with EQ — emotional intelligence — are more ideal for the job.
A successful college president is a people person, presidents themselves say in a new report from Academic Search, the American Academic Leadership Institute, the Council of Independent Colleges, and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
Emotional intelligence dominates a list of the seven top traits for college leaders. Researchers surveyed more than 700 presidents and conducted focus groups to identify the traits:
Presidents cited trust most frequently, with 96 percent of survey respondents saying leaders should behave in a way that’s trustworthy, consistent, and accountable. That easily outpaced the 80 percent who said using data is very relevant.
The traits offer an aspirational model for college leaders. “The current national conversation on higher education mistakenly focuses on why some presidents fail,” Jay Lemons, president of Academic Search, said in a statement.
Could it also suggest why some leaders flop? Presidents put more stock in coping with adversity than data-informed decision-making. They emphasized communicating effectively more than doing so transparently.
The bigger picture: Prospective presidents and search committees alike need to know what makes leaders successful at a time when increasingly short tenures, accelerating budget pressures, and political polarization force hard decisions to the forefront of the job.
For more:
Voluntary buyouts can give employees some sense of agency when colleges must cut costs. They can also leave those who remain scrambling to pick up the pieces, as our Adrienne Lu reports.
About one in five eligible employees took buyouts at Pennsylvania State University’s regional campuses. That’s 383 people, 10 percent of all employees at those institutions.
The cuts come after a decade of steep enrollment declines, as Penn State’s regional campuses lost a quarter of their enrollment. Yet staffing was little changed until this year. Many employees left in June. The rest will be gone by the end of December.
The New Kensington campus was particularly hard hit. It’s losing:
Student services won’t be affected, administrators say.
But remaining employees worry the institution will have no choice but to do less. One of the college’s two academic advisers moved to student affairs. John Craig Hammond, an associate professor of history and the assistant director of academic affairs, had to find instructors to cover classes for four people who took buyouts.
More changes are coming. Penn State is asking some chancellors to oversee two or three campuses. Services like facilities, information technology, and finances will be centralized. An academic review has been pitched to help align programs with demand from students and employers.
The bigger picture: Penn State’s struggles reflect trends roiling colleges across the country. Regional campuses that disproportionately serve first-generation, low-income, and historically underrepresented students have frequently struggled with enrollment declines and financial crunches. Yet hard decisions were put off for years, making cuts more disruptive when they come.
The bigger question: Can leaders craft strategies for the future that keep employees invested in a better tomorrow, even as they see so many of their colleagues walk out the door?
Read the full story: Penn State Offered Buyouts. At This Campus, 40 Percent of Staff Raised Their Hands.
💲 Faculty members at private colleges: We need your help! The Chronicle is examining professors’ salaries and finances. We’ve spoken to several professors at public institutions, but want to be sure private institutions are represented, too.
💸 What does it mean to get by in academe? If you’re willing to talk to a reporter, email Megan Zahneis at megan.zahneis@chronicle.com.
To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.
The arrival of mid-September means it’s time to wrap up the Daily Briefing’s series of move-in photos. Let’s end with one more, from Sacred Heart University, in Connecticut.
Founded in 1963, Sacred Heart considers itself the first Roman Catholic university in America to be led and staffed by laypeople — meaning it was ahead of a long trend in which fewer and fewer Catholic colleges are led by priests, brothers, and nuns. Nonetheless, I’m sure many families were praying for help as they tried to interpret instructions and assemble dorm furniture.
Correction: Tuesday’s Daily Briefing incorrectly stated the location of Wittenberg University. It is in Ohio, not Illinois.
