Good morning, and welcome to Monday, September 23. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

Paths from the presidency

We scrutinize pathways to the college presidency to understand who’s holding these important roles and what skills they might bring to the job. But what do former leaders have to offer colleges after they step down?

Our David Jesse takes a look at presidents who return to the faculty.

Relatively few college leaders plan on becoming serial college presidents, the American Council on Education has found. Only a quarter plan to seek another presidency, and nearly 40 percent anticipate doing consulting work.

Almost 15 percent of college presidents say they’ll return to the faculty when they leave their job.

That’s a high-stakes transition, personally and for the institutions they lead.

• Former presidents are often expensive. Contracts can pack platinum parachutes guaranteeing tenured positions, high salaries, and other lucrative perks.
• They can retain soft power, which can be beneficial if they’re able to serve as interpreters between faculty members and administrators. But it also threatens to undermine successors.
• Their personal and professional lives change drastically. Departing presidents must catch up in their academic disciplines even as they adapt to not having executive teams. And suddenly, they’re not the most important person in most rooms.

“It’s a moment of identity reformation, both professionally and personally,” said Lisa Jasinski, president of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, who wrote a book on returning to the faculty.

Preparation can ease the change. Many leaders keep one foot in their academic disciplines, attending conferences, making time for research, and thinking about courses they’d like to teach. Contractual terms might seek to head off governance problems by stating whether a former president can weigh in on institutional decisions.

But leaders can never really go back. “Once you’ve been president, you’re not ever really a regular faculty member,” said M. Roy Wilson, former leader of Wayne State University, in Detroit.

The bigger picture: With the average tenure of a college president continually declining, more former leaders are in line to return to instruction and research, instead of embarking on early retirement.

Read the full story: ‘You Become a Mere Mortal': What Happens When Presidents Go Back to the Faculty

Quick hits

• Big job for New Mexico State’s next president: The institution chose as its next president Valerio Ferme, who has been the University of Cincinnati’s provost. Ferme will have to help the institution recover from a tumultuous several years that included the sudden resignation of its chancellor, firing of its provost, departure of its president, and firing of its men’s basketball coach. (The Chronicle)
• Penn State yanks student newspapers over advertising: The Pennsylvania flagship removed 35 news racks from campus last week, saying The Daily Collegian broke a policy barring advertising on campus. The newspaper said all stands were removed even though just nine bore the advertisements in question: Posters above three ran advertisements for Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, while six featured voter-registration ads. A Penn State spokesperson emailed the Daily Briefing that as discussions about the situation “were ongoing, the university temporarily relocated the newspaper racks to remove the advertisements.” (The Daily Collegian, Pennsylvania State University)
• Lewis & Clark College ditches “pioneers” nickname: After a survey showed little student support for the moniker, the private Oregon college seeks a replacement. The name dates back to 1942, when the college’s student newspaper began publishing as the Lewis & Clark Pioneer Log. But the publication was more recently renamed with its editor-in-chief saying the name upheld a “colonial legacy.” (The Oregonian)
• Austin Peay promises more vetting for job candidates: The public institution in Tennessee pledged to ask applicants to share past activities “that could damage the reputation of the University” and hire a third party to do social-media checks after an alternative weekly newspaper reported on allegations that a recently hired assistant professor is a white supremacist. (WSMV, Nashville Scene)
• Judge won’t block university digital ID for voters: A North Carolina judge turned down a request from Republicans to stop a UNC-Chapel Hill digital student ID card from being used to meet a new state law requiring photo identification at the polls. The GOP argued electronic cards are easier to change and harder to examine than physical ones, while Democrats said the digital cards meet the law’s requirements. (Associated Press)

Stat of the day

618

That’s how many institutions have signed on to a year-old effort to have colleges send clearer financial-aid offers to undergraduates.

The College Cost Transparency Initiative launched last year with 360 colleges enrolling 3.8 million students. It’s backed by 10 higher-ed associations and managed by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

• Participating colleges must use plain language, estimate students’ total cost of attendance, clearly label loans and grants, and state whether financial aid is renewable or only available for one year. Colleges don’t have to follow an identical format, though.

Large institutions have taken to the effort in particular. Here are a few stats to know:

• 72 percent of institutions with full-time enrollment of 20,000 students or more have signed on.
• 40 percent of four-year public colleges are taking part.
• 20 percent of minority-serving institutions participate.
• 6.3 million students are enrolled at the initiative’s 618 members.

“We showed presidents of institutions their own offer letters,” Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, told the Daily Briefing. “It really is stunning how many had trouble reading them.”

What’s next? “We are hoping to get our uptake to 10 million students served in a relatively short period of time,” Beth Maglione, NASFAA’s interim president and CEO, said.

The bigger picture: This voluntary effort helps colleges head off regulatory proposals that might not be as flexible as self-enforced guidelines. It landed at the right moment for colleges that have to navigate intense concerns about higher ed’s value, frustration about student-loan debt, and the confusing, glitch-filled debut of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

Quote of the day

“We vote by secret ballot for a reason.”

— Jennifer Cramer, a professor of linguistics at the University of Kentucky who is on the executive committee of its American Association of University Professors chapter

Professors worry University of Kentucky administrators want to retaliate against faculty members who voted no confidence in the university’s president, Eli Capilouto, in May as the institution moved to dissolve its powerful University Senate.

• Only the totals of the no-confidence vote were reported: 58 in favor, 24 against, and 11 abstaining.

Records showing how individual faculty members voted were archived at the direction of the University Senate’s former chair, DeShana Collett. She says administrators have questioned her about that decision even though she thinks it’s proper procedure.

The university “went directly to looking for the individual votes of no confidence,” Collett alleged. The provost’s office took control of the online account through which votes were administered, but it’s not clear whether the voting records were accessed.

A spokesperson denied scrutinizing votes and pledged not to retaliate.

As a public institution, the university must preserve records, its spokesperson, Jay Blanton, said. Open-records law requires the university to make documents available to state residents and media organizations upon request, with only narrow exemptions.

Read the full story: After a No-Confidence Vote at the U. of Kentucky, a Tussle Over Ballots Gets Messy

Comings and goings

• Anne Barnes, vice chancellor for business, finance, and business development at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, has been named interim vice president and chief financial officer for the University of Nebraska system.
• Valerio Ferme, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of Cincinnati, has been named president of New Mexico State University.
• Todd G. Fritch, executive vice president and provost at the State College of Florida, has been named president of the University of West Alabama.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.

Footnote

Here’s another natural law of working in higher education, as observed by a reader. Mike Morris, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of New Haven, submits the aptly named Morris’s Iron Law of Higher Education Creativity:

“There is no human activity that cannot be transformed into an online micro-credential by a competent university marketing department.”

📛 Turn your own rules of working on a campus into a badge of honor. Publication in a Daily Briefing Footnote is the ultimate certificate that proves your observational prowess for the coming skills-based economy. Email dailybriefing@chronicle.com.