It has been 30 years since I first became a chief financial officer — long enough that I have reached old-timer status and can see how much the job has changed over the years. When I first started, most CFOs had that proverbial green-eyeshade mentality. Times were good. Enrollments by the Boomers were growing faster than campuses could accommodate them.

But beyond the details of the finances, we weren’t involved in building projects. A successful chief financial officer just worried about the expense side of the ledger and about keeping the institution out of trouble – which often meant making people toe the line.

Since then, I’ve seen the job change a lot — for the better, I think — to match the times and the opportunities. To be successful, today’s chief financial officers — often they have titles like “vice president for finance and administration” — have to do and be a lot more, including being involved in campus planning and building. Without compromising fiduciary responsibilities, they must be strategists who act as entrepreneurs, fund raisers, and catalysts.

Entrepreneurs: Capital-development partnerships – like a hotel/conference center or a university-community sports complex – were rarities when I first worked on them in the 1980s. Now they are not, and more and more chief financial officers take leadership roles in such projects. They are responsible for buying property that will enable the institution to fulfill an academic or student need, as well as for negotiating with banks, developers, local redevelopment agencies, corporations, and other groups to finance and build transformational projects. If you look at all of the successful joint ventures occurring across all sectors of higher education — from community colleges through research universities — you’ll find a CFO involved in nearly every one, very often playing the leadership role for the university.

Fund Raisers: Today, many CFOs sit alongside presidents and chief advancement officers in working on capital campaigns. They help form strategies for the best approach, identify ways to get matching funds for donor money, and help write case statements that can be used attract funds. They even sit next to presidents, and across from donors, to help ask for major gifts.

Catalysts: Colleges and universities are highly creative environments where creative thinking is an important part of moving an institution forward. In the old days, the CFO was seen as the “No” guy (most were men) – his office was a place where ideas went to die. CFOs had at least 49 reasons why something couldn’t be done. Today, the successful CFO is the person to whom deans, department chairs, principal investigators, and others look to help activate creative ideas. They are trusted advisers for identifying the space and money needed to accommodate research grants. They establish low-interest loans to accommodate the facilities and operating needs of revenue-generating start-up projects in the academic units. They create emergency financial-aid funds to help students deal with short-term problems, enabling them to stay in college rather than drop out. And they sit on presidents’ cabinets as active participants in generating new ideas and leveraging limited institutional resources.

By expanding their roles, chief financial officers are making their jobs and their institutions more vital. That is a key role in the tough economic times — like the ones we are now in. —Sal Rinella

Sal Rinella, February’s Buildings & Grounds guest blogger, is president of the Society for College and University Planning. He is also a consultant with the strategic-planning firm Stratus and is former president of Austin Peay State University. You can read his previous post here.