Two things overlooked in finding academic leadership is that unlike other institutions colleges & universities have no program for growing leaders and few successful academics have any experience outside the academy.
The military begins training leaders from the beginning, & businesses of any size have programs to recognize & groom strong candidates for leadership. In higher ed, it's hit & miss. Someone becomes bored with scholarship, becomes dean, moves up to provost so long as nothing horrible happens, and may well become president somewhere else when a new president wants a new provost. In the past, this worked ok, not only because academic leadership jobs were different, but because academics had experience outside higher ed, usually in the military. Now, successful academics have done nothing but go to school & teach school: they are good at identifying problems but horrible at finding solutions & building consensus to implement them. Moreover, managing academic affairs may give little or experience in managing the business side of a school or dealing with alumni. Worse, in my experience, often they don't want to get the training they need. One president, when I suggested he go to Harvard's very good bootcamp, refused because he was afraid doing so would be an admission he didn't know how to do the job. The end of his presidency was tragic.
I think that promoting someone in house to interim & then keeping them if they do a good job is an excellent idea. Knowing the institution makes the big jump to president easier. Why? In my experience outside hires tend to do the job they know, provost, rather than doing the job they need to do, preside. They're more comfortable that way. Insiders tend to have a clearer idea of how to preside, because they're familiar with both the institutions & their predecessor's weaknesses. Hiring a headhunter is also an excellent idea, so long as they're experienced in evaluating candidates' potential for leadership & trustees recognize that hiring a university president isn't the same thing as hiring a CEO in the widget industry. They need to be acutely aware of how big a jump it is from provost to president & interview candidates accordingly.
As far as some of that pushback goes -- I'll give all the money in my pocket (ok, ok -- I don't have any money in my pocket right now; still ...) for someone who can tell me the last teaching or scholarly innovation that came from a university president during their university presidency.
These presidents were progressives who thought their progressive friends would defend progressive ideals. They were wrong.
Two things overlooked in finding academic leadership is that unlike other institutions colleges & universities have no program for growing leaders and few successful academics have any experience outside the academy.
The military begins training leaders from the beginning, & businesses of any size have programs to recognize & groom strong candidates for leadership. In higher ed, it's hit & miss. Someone becomes bored with scholarship, becomes dean, moves up to provost so long as nothing horrible happens, and may well become president somewhere else when a new president wants a new provost. In the past, this worked ok, not only because academic leadership jobs were different, but because academics had experience outside higher ed, usually in the military. Now, successful academics have done nothing but go to school & teach school: they are good at identifying problems but horrible at finding solutions & building consensus to implement them. Moreover, managing academic affairs may give little or experience in managing the business side of a school or dealing with alumni. Worse, in my experience, often they don't want to get the training they need. One president, when I suggested he go to Harvard's very good bootcamp, refused because he was afraid doing so would be an admission he didn't know how to do the job. The end of his presidency was tragic.
I think that promoting someone in house to interim & then keeping them if they do a good job is an excellent idea. Knowing the institution makes the big jump to president easier. Why? In my experience outside hires tend to do the job they know, provost, rather than doing the job they need to do, preside. They're more comfortable that way. Insiders tend to have a clearer idea of how to preside, because they're familiar with both the institutions & their predecessor's weaknesses. Hiring a headhunter is also an excellent idea, so long as they're experienced in evaluating candidates' potential for leadership & trustees recognize that hiring a university president isn't the same thing as hiring a CEO in the widget industry. They need to be acutely aware of how big a jump it is from provost to president & interview candidates accordingly.
As far as some of that pushback goes -- I'll give all the money in my pocket (ok, ok -- I don't have any money in my pocket right now; still ...) for someone who can tell me the last teaching or scholarly innovation that came from a university president during their university presidency.