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* Academic Administration * Wilson Smith Thomas Bender context Academic leadership is exceptionally complex. Contemporary institutions of higher education are unquestionably hierarchical institutions, yet there is a long history of more democratic institutional governance that cannot be ignored. If corporate styles of management in higher education are increasingly evident, collaboration and participatory decision-making are values strongly held by the key personnel. Indeed, according to rulings of the National Labor Relations Board, the faculty in private universities are considered to be management and thus not labor and not eligible for the protection of the Board, though few faculty at the end of the twentieth century consider themselves so empowered (VI, 12). Universities are unusual institutions in that they employ professionals whose special knowledge is not fully accessible to management, or often even to their closest colleagues—and they are hired for that very reason. But leading the faculty was only part of the challenge faced by the late twentieth-century college or university president. Leaders have multiple constituencies beyond the faculty—trustees, donors or legislatures, students, parents, alumnae, professional and nonprofessional staff, local civic and business leaders, unions, and more. In addition, most of the subordinate academic administrators with whom they must work—particularly the crucially important department chairs—have no particular training in management. Their training is as scholars, scientists, and teachers. More often than not, the president of a university has a similar background, albeit usually supplemented with fairly long service as a chair, as head of an institute, or as dean or provost. Yet the major research universities they lead are almost always among the largest corporations in their own cities. Even in New York City, the center of the American economy, both New York University and Columbia University are among the five largest private employers (1–3). Why do men and women take on this challenge? Surely part of it is a strong belief in the importance of the institution and a sense that what happens there is of some larger significance to the local and wider community. There is also the appeal of power, however fractured it may be. There is the satisfaction of having the resources, financial and otherwise, to make something happen, something that enriches the usefulness of the institution to its various constituencies and the general society. University leadership depends upon and requires a sense of responsibility for the institution and for affairs “beyond the ivory tower,” to use Derek Bok’s phrase (4–8). To some, although less so than in the past, it is a civic platform, a “bully pulpit” (9). As in other major American institutions, white males have historically held the highest offices in institutions of higher education. And except for a select group of women’s colleges, the more distinguished the college or university, the more common that pattern of leadership. By the last decade of the twentieth century, there was a sprinkling of African-American presidents of major interracial colleges and universities, both public and private, and as of this writing, women, one of them African-American, lead four Ivy League institutions. But, as Nannerl Keohane, herself the extremely successful president of a leading research university, notes, “milestones still remain” (10). Over the course of decades following the generation of James B. Conant at Harvard or Robert Maynard Hutchins at Chicago there arose a chorus of despair about the retreat of such university leaders from civic life. Going back to the era of the Civil War and to Harvard’s President Eliot there was a line of university presidents as public figures. Is it a problem that we see no successors to this role among present university presidents? If so, is the issue one of less capable individuals in the positions? Or is it the changed place of the institution in our society? Has public faith in higher education declined—beyond its credentialing role—to the degree that a presidency is not much of a civic platform? Has the job changed in ways that constrain the president who would be inclined to speak out on issues that matter in American civic life and beyond? In fact, the job has indeed changed in ways that reduce the civic presidency of the past. The scale has changed; the president of a major research university manages one of the largest institutions in contemporary America. That generally leaves little time for the expression of compelling insights into the challenges facing the larger society. Related and equally important, the extraordinary and increasing financial...

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