This collection of speeches and essays, written between 1998 and 2001, addresses major issues relating to higher education and the leadership and administration of its institutions. The role of (and need for) education in the United States, the challenges facing university administrators, cultural i

A presidential transition has a major impact on the life of an institution. Hundreds of presidential transitions take place annually, and when they are not amicable and carefully orchestrated, they can scar both the institution and the president. Sanaghan, Goldstein, and Gaval estimate that more than one-third of the presidential transitions in higher education are involuntary and have a negative effect on the institution. This book is designed to provide assistance to presidents, trustees, faculty, and other important stakeholder groups and help them avoid the pitfalls of poorly managed transitions. The authors discuss how, with proper planning, care, and execution, this presidential passage can be an opportunity for a transitioning president, and those who surround him or her, to write a positive chapter in the campus history. Readers will discover that appropriately addressing the anxiety that accompanies major transitions_for both those joining the institution and those already present_is essential. Dozens of presidents, chancellors, board members, and other senior executives were interviewed for this book. Each major chapter includes selected personal observations, from these interviews, which illustrate the critical issues addressed in the book.

Presidencies Derailed is the first book to explore in depth why university presidencies fail and how university and college leadership can forestall, if not prevent, future leadership failures. Former university president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, along with professor Gerald B. Kauvar and former chancellor E. Grady Bogue, organize, classify, and explain patterns of leadership failures, drawing on firsthand testimonies from "derailed" university presidents, sixteen case studies in four sectors of higher education, and reviews of the scholarly literature on leadership failures in the public and private sectors.

Presidencies Derailed is the first book to explore in depth why university presidencies fail and how university and college leadership can forestall, if not prevent, future leadership failures. Former university president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, along with professor Gerald B. Kauvar and former chancellor E. Grady Bogue, organize, classify, and explain patterns of leadership failures, drawing on firsthand testimonies from "derailed" university presidents, sixteen case studies in four sectors of higher education, and reviews of the scholarly literature on leadership failures in the public and private sectors.

How experienced college and university leaders guide successful institutions-and why they sometimes lose their way. Today's college and university leaders face complex problems that test their political acumen as well as their judgment, intellect, empathy, and ability to plan and improvise. How do they thoughtfully and creatively rise to the challenge? In Leading Colleges and Universities, editors Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, Gerald B. Kauvar, and E. Gordon Gee bring together a host of presidents and other leaders in higher education who describe how they dealt with the issues. Each contributor has been effective as a president or other significant leader in postsecondary education. In this book they share real-life examples and stories that illustrate how they have dealt with the challenges they encountered. Together they answer these and other core questions: * How do you manage college athletics, faculty, a governing board, donors, and a local community? * What do you need to know about crisis management and legal affairs? * When should you be outspoken in the media and when should you be quiet? The book does not shy away from hot contemporary issues, tackling such controversial matters as free speech, Title IX, athletics, fraternities, student and faculty diversity, and board relations. Presidents and would-be presidents-as well as boards, search committees, state boards, legislators, and others involved in higher education-will find much helpful guidance in this timely book.

An eye-opening and at times controversial insider's look at the current state of higher education in America, from one of the nation's most distinguished and down-to-earth university presidents.

At a time when daily news headlines scream of competitive college enrollments, skyrocketing tuition, campus violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and other campus scandals, the former president of The George Washington University tells it like it really is.

Educated at Columbia, Yale, and Harvard universities, with a membership in Phi Beta Kappa, more than fifteen honorary doctorates, four books, and numerous published articles, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is one of the leading voices in American higher education. Here he brings his thirty years of experience, wisdom, and wit to reveal what goes on behind the scenes in the difficult and rewarding challenge of running a university. Using wonderful anecdotes from his own life, Trachtenberg explains with compassion and his trademark humor the insight he has gained from the halls of learning.

For parents who will write big checks to send their sons and daughters to college, for businesspeople of all kinds looking for leadership lessons, and for anyone invested in America's system of higher education, this book is a major work about the importance of sustaining our nation's natural brain trust.

American colleges and universities are facing their most difficult challenge since World War II: finding qualified faculty to teach our students and administrators to manage and lead our institutions of higher education while grappling with budget cuts, public pressure for more and better educational programs, and current resources that are strained to the limit. Studies point to a critical faculty shortage by the year 2010. In facing this shortage, these same institutions have never been less prepared to meet the challenge of hiring. Hiring at institutions of higher education is normally done by "amateurs" - educators who are untrained in personnel management. The search committee approach, when it succeeds, is often a matter of chance. There is seldom a plan; leadership is difficult to establish; and a concerted effort among the members and the layers of bureaucracy is hard to achieve when so many separate agendas are in play. Edited by two respected university administrators, The Art of Hiring in America's Colleges and Universities is indispensable for professional administrators, job seekers, and the general public. All parties in the hiring process are identified and their roles are clearly defined. Attention is given to special concerns as the contributors offer helpful suggestions to those whose task it is to reach hiring decisions that could affect the quality of American education well into the next century. Successful administrators and faculty from prestigious schools as well as professionals from the private sector offer practical observations to help institutions achieve their hiring objectives. Chapters focus on the role of the university/college president, deans, andsearch committees; what to look for in a candidate; hiring women and minorities; integrating work and family; the cost of hiring; recruiting lessons from the business world; using professional consultants; and more. Contributors include Sue A. Blanshan, Ronald Caruso, Cheryl L. Fagnano, E. Gordon Gee, Milton Greenberg, Donald W. Jugenheimer, Joseph H. Kauffman, Judith Block McLaughlin, Lewis C. Solmon, Ronald H. Stein, Marian J. Swoboda, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, and M. Fredric Volkmann.

Sandra Featherman believes that colleges are in denial about the severity of the threats to the current model of higher education. Based on her own experience as a president, as a trustee, and as a board member who has worked in private and public universities - and on interviews with the presidents of major institutions - she offers both a trenchant analysis of those threats and clear prescriptions about the painful but necessary decisions that colleges need to make to ensure they remain viable, accessible and affordable, and deliver a high-quality education. Sandra Featherman considers higher education to be at a game-changing moment. When markets don't function well - as is the case with today's college marketplace with offerings that cost too much and return too little - it opens the door to new types of suppliers, who offer new ways of providing what students are looking for, particularly the increasing cohort of mature, working students. In the face of new competitors - for-profit education companies, technology start-ups, and foreign universities vying for international students - trustees and senior level administrators are generally stuck in a traditional ethos and with decision-making processes unsuited to these times. They know what used to work, and find it easier to follow old ways than to make the difficult transition to new ways of delivering education. She lays out a strategy: that emphasizes the centrality of students and how to provide them with the most effective learning environment; that is clear-eyed about focusing on the core missions, and abandoning practices that constrain or impede them; and that requires constant self-monitoring to learn from and act upon what works. She offers a blueprint for redesigning institutions, for paring away what is unnecessary and cost ineffective, and for adopting the best technologies, all in the service of developing meaningful degree programs at an affordable price, and widening access for under-represented groups. She ranges over the implications of budget decisions, accreditation, and MOOCs; addresses government regulation and tuition costs; presents promising new models; and concludes with 11 key recommendations that should be heeded by all higher education administrators and trustees.

An enlightening and fascinating collection of speeches by Stephen Trachtenberg, this book touches upon many of the fundamental issues facing institutions of higher education. Trachtenberg asks why, although everybody agrees something must be done about our public education system, nothing, or next to nothing, has actually happened? If what our students most lack are technical and mathematical skills, is the debate over western tradition vs. multiculturalism a red herring? Can total quality management really work in the stratified environment of American higher education? Whether examining the role of business in education, the value of political correctness, the frayed self-image of American higher education, or the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., Trachtenberg brings to each topic not only his thought-provoking insight and wry humor, but his own wealth of real-life experience in education, government, and business.