文章基本信息

标题：Who Wants To Be A College President?
本地全文：下载
作者：Beheruz N. Sethna
期刊名称：B Quest
电子版ISSN：1084-3981
出版年度：2015
出版社：Richards College of Business, University of West Georgia
摘要：The average age of college presidents today is 61 and the median age is 62. Itappears that, within the next few years, there will be several of these presidents retiringand consequently several vacancies being created. Higher education will need goodpeople to fill these vacancies. In this paper, three broad topics are discussed which maybe of interest to those considering the possibility of someday becoming a collegepresident.One of these is an analysis of the major activities that presidents engage in, thatthey enjoy, and that they declare themselves ill prepared for when they first becamepresident. This analysis is intended to provide the reader with an idea of what the job ofa college president might entail. Another purpose served is that, if a person wishes topursue a path to the presidency, this analysis provides guidance on skill sets,experiences, accomplishments, and candidly, lines on resumes that it might be useful toaccumulate.Another topic included in this paper is an analysis of pathways to the presidency.This is done by examining perceptual hypotheses about what today’s college presidentin America looks like in terms of gender, race/ethnicity, religion, education, parentdiscipline, and career path and, understanding that some of these characteristics arenot controllable and others are, what the implications might be of these in terms ofgetting oneself ready for the presidency.These two sub-topics are closely related, because it is the total package ofdemographics, controllable attributes, and understanding of the issues that will bepresented to a search committee or a governing board.Finally, in the discussion section, a Q&A format that includes some of theexperiences of the author is used to provide some idea of the challenges and the joys ofthe position.