Finding suitable candidates for a top job in higher education is far from easy, given the variety of constituencies who want a say in the search, the necessity for confidentiality, and understanding the present and future needs of the institution.
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Our state, and the Central Massachusetts region, are rich with colleges and universities, with a total of 15 headquartered here. By the end of the year, more than half of those colleges will have a new president who started their job over the last two years. The coronavirus pandemic has fueled significant turnover in the leadership of some of the region’s most influential institutions, as the higher education industry faces major headwinds in the coming decade.
And it's not just here. Colleges across the nation are seeing their leaders depart with greater frequency. In 2006, U.S. college presidents stayed in their position for an average of 8.5 years. By 2017, the average dropped to 6.5 years, according to the latest study from the American Council on Education. The Central Massachusetts presidents who have announced they are stepping down this year all beat that average: Dean College’s Paula Rooney is retiring after 27 years in the corner office; Francesco Cesareo at Assumption University is retiring after 15 years at the school, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Laurie Leshin is leaving to lead NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory after eight years on the job.
As WBJ Staff Writer Katherine Hamilton points out in her story “How do you replace a college president?” finding suitable candidates for a top job in higher education is far from easy, given the variety of constituencies who want a say in the search, the necessity for confidentiality, and understanding the present and future needs of the institution. The heaviest lift for a college president in the past few decades has been to serve as chief rainmaker, working with alumni and top donors to bring in millions. While that remains a vital part of the job, presidents must now deal with the short- and long-term impacts of the pandemic, and the fact the Northeast has fewer high school graduates matriculating to college. Expanding programs, broadening their geographic target area, courting non-traditional students, and adding online delivery to their portfolio of student options are among the many options in sorting out the right path forward.
Regardless of who the WPI, Assumption, and Dean presidential searches yield, Central Mass. is entering a new era in its institutions of higher ed. Because of the historic and high-profile nature, their economic clout as major employers, and the increasing role of the eds-and-meds economy in the region, college presidents are key leaders in the business community. Some will broaden their institutions connections in the community, while others may stay largely within the walls of their campus. We hope the new presidents who step in, along with the current presidents who are mostly fairly new as well, will see their success as tied to the success of the whole region.
