A peak inside one private college's politics points up the pros and cons of being a college prez

This story, from today's Chronicle of Higher Education, makes us the proverbial flies on the wall.  Hope College is a religiously affiliated school in Holland, Michigan.  My memories of Holland go back to my days in the U.S. Coast Guard.  As Admiral's Aide I journeyed each August to another little town (Grand Haven) along Lake Michigan's east shore for its Coast Guard festival.  We passed by Holland, which had its tulip festival, along the way.

But I digress...

This story recounts how the president's decision to remove the provost led to the board's decision to remove him.  This led to campus protests and a petition from 75% of the tenured faculty in strong support of their chief executive.  How many other college presidents do you think could garner anything like that kind of support from their faculties?

Indeed, presidents appear to be particular targets this spring.  We saw a few fall in the face of the new African American activism on campuses across the country.

The challenges for presidents of private colleges and universities are particularly acute these days.

On the other hand, the rewards can be substantial.  Boards of Trustees staffed by wealthy donors from corporate America see nothing incongruous about paying the CEOs of non-profit institutions comparable salaries.  A case in point is Drexel University, where I am an adjunct professor law, and where President John Fry reportedly is paid $1.2 million annually.  Fry's background also is telling: an MBA (not a PHD nor a scholar), coming out of the higher ed consulting practice of a major accounting/consulting firm.  As VP at Penn, which lives cheek to jowl with Drexel in University City on Philly's West Side, he made his mark by developing the environs.  He did the same for my alma mater, Franklin & Marshall College, as its president, before returning to West Philly a few years ago.

Truth is that private higher education probably must behave more like its for-profit corporate counterparts in the years ahead.  Competition is fierce.  Costs are hard to control.  Differentiation among institutions and individual programs --- branding --- is hard to accomplish, as we all try to be supermarkets of majors, degrees, certificates, etc.  A shake-up, and very possibly a shake-out, are in the cards.  More and more private schools will pay big bucks for presidents who promise to see them through this "rationalization" of our segment of the higher ed industry.