The next generation of leaders in Central Mass. higher education is taking shape, and the region appears strongly positioned with great talent.
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The next generation of leaders in Central Mass. higher education is taking shape, and the region appears strongly positioned with great talent.
Since 2020, eight of the 13 presidents at the region’s colleges and universities have left for new roles or retired, and those schools have searched for new leaders at a time when higher education is still feeling the impact of COVID as well as structural demographic challenges with fewer high school graduates ready to enroll. Worcester Polytechnic Institute completed the final piece of the region’s leadership puzzle on Nov. 7 when it selected “Grace” Jinliu Wang as its next president. She led research operations at The Ohio State University and the State University of New York and will become the first person of color to lead WPI on a non-interim basis.
WPI wasn’t the only Worcester school to find the right candidate from a non-traditional background. At the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Vincent Rougeau took over in 2021 as the first non-Jesuit president in the 179-year-old school’s history. Rougeau, who is Black, has kept a steady hand on the wheel as Holy Cross, sought deeper community ties all while continuing to raise the profile of the school regionally and nationally. In his two years leading Clark University, David Fithian, who is openly gay, has secured $100 million in financing, absorbed the design and technology department from the now-closed Becker College, and oversaw the ambitious purchase of a seven-acre vacant land parcel.
Wang's talents and background fit well with WPI’s focus on experiential learning and its desire to expand its research and education globally. Her most recent role has been serving as executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge enterprise at Ohio State, after she led the SUNY research enterprise with $1.7 billion in annual spending. She holds seven U.S. patents.
Having diverse leadership like Wang, Rougeau, and Fithian creates opportunities for underserved populations, whose unique needs might not have been understood until someone with a similar background shows up in a leadership position. Wang’s predecessor at WPI, Laurie Leshin, was its first woman president, and over the course of her eight years there, WPI’s student body went from being barely a quarter female to the Class of 2021 being the most gender-balanced in its history, with 44% women. Wang, too has shown a focus on helping overlooked populations, such as leading efforts to create the STEAMM Rising partnership with the Columbus City Schools.
When hiring for a powerful position, the more you can widen your search, the richer your candidate pool. Some discussion around diversity and inclusion in the past two years has been little more than talk, as businesses struggle to change. Yet the evidence shows in other areas, like higher education, those efforts are paying dividends.
