Dive Brief:
- At a panel discussion on free speech at the Association of American Colleges & Universities conference last month, Jeff Trammell, former Rector of the College of William & Mary, said that presidents and other administrators increasingly must straddle the line between "being champions of free speech in the tradition of liberal arts" and being stalwart supporters of the institution's values and mission.
- Panelist John Alger, president of James Madison University, explained the role of the president traditionally has been to represent the institution, but now that's becoming more difficult. He said this is a time for leaders to go back to their "first principles" on what providing an college education truly means, and that the president does not "have to comment on everything and anything that anybody in the community says all the time."
- Alger added that the role of the president in controversial times — unless the events impact the community and its needs — is not to "become the opinionator in chief, who is constantly opining about everything. That actually diminishes the presidential role."
Dive Insight:
Administrators across the industry are all too aware of the string of campus protests and instances of unrest that marked 2017, including those at Evergreen State College, University of California, Berkeley and the University of Virginia. Now, leaders are still preparing to handle a new year of issues like campus free speech and rising security costs of inviting certain types of speakers to campus.
Not only that, leaders are also seeing how these instances of unrest could potentially result in job insecurity, with several presidents having stepped down or having been called on to resign. For example, former University of Missouri Tim Wolfe was forced to resign following his handling of racial hostilities on campus in 2015. Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin also left.
Furthermore, presidents are being put in the spotlight for their handling of sexual harassment on campus. Ithaca College President Shirley Collado recently came under scrutiny when news of her alleged misdemeanor sexual abuse while working at a psychiatric hospital resurfaced. This comes at the same time University of Rochester President Joel Seligman announced his resignation just before reports of sexual misconduct claims against a university professor publicly surfaced, and Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon resigned over her handling of sexual misconduct claims against associate medical professor Larry Nassar, who was arrested in 2016.
With presidents and other executives facing potential backlash over their handling of campus events, panelists at the AAC&U conference cautioned leaders to think critically about what they respond to and when. As Alger noted, leaders have to ask themselves whether the controversy they respond to impacts the campus, or face the risk of their personal brand being negatively impacted.