Colleges lag behind corporations when it comes to having the information they need to pick their top leaders, a group of prominent presidential-search consultants told education researchers here on Friday.
The search consultants, who were convened for a panel discussion by the Association for the Study of Higher Education, said their work was complicated by a lack of empirical research comparable to what exists in the business world.
Theodore J. Marchese, a senior consultant with Academic Search Inc., said corporate search committees can tap into a substantial body of literature on such questions as how to best recruit and screen applicants for top positions. Higher education, by contrast, largely operates as “a community of practice” in leadership searches, with governing boards and executive-search committees relying on advice dispensed to them during retreats or lunch gatherings and through informal interactions with others in the field.
The panel cited several areas needing more research.
Jean A. Dowdall, who advises colleges as a senior vice president of the search firm Witt/Kieffer, said little is known about how well applicants from “nontraditional” backgrounds stack up against those from inside academe. Also largely unstudied is the likely effectiveness of candidates from positions in academe that previously were not considered steppingstones to the presidency, such as fund raisers, chief student-affairs officers, and chief financial officers.
Mr. Marchese said he had seen research on whether top executives in the corporate world can effectively move from one field to another, and “the answer tends to be no” because so many key skills are learned from experience. In his view, he said, nontraditional college presidents “are good at what they are good at, but they leave other things alone.”
Narcisa A. Polonio, vice president for research, education, and board-leadership services at the Association of Community College Trustees, said more research needed to be done on the types of compensation packages that enable college presidents to be effective. She cited recent incidents of college presidents who were arrested for drunken driving and said research was needed on whether various benefits, such as sabbaticals and leaves of absence, would help college leaders better deal with the long-term pressures of their jobs.
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17 Responses to Blind Spots in Presidential Searches
Vance Maverick - October 5, 2011 at 9:28 pm
If I’m understanding right, you’re saying that “All lawyers are not liars” means precisely “No lawyer is a liar”. True? (If not, what meaning are you saying is the right one?) What is the evidence for this interpretation?
It seems to me — speaking naively, as a mere user of the language — that the phrase can mean “Not all lawyers are liars”. As evidence, I adduce the fact that lots of people use it this way (even you admit that).
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jl25and3 - October 6, 2011 at 5:42 am
The most common use of this construction is probably in advertising, where a special offer is said to be “not available in all areas.”
I’m torn on this one. It bugs me, because it’s just as easy to say what is actually meant: “not available in some areas.” At the same time, the meaning is not actually ambiguous; I know exactly what they are saying, and so does every other listener.
altacharo - October 6, 2011 at 8:35 am
This particular construction has grated on my ears for years, ever since I was riding Amtrak on the NY-DC run and was forced to hear “all doors will not open” each time we stopped. It always put me in mind of a disaster movie, where none of the doors would open and the passengers would be seen through the windows, screaming for help. Sadly, I see the construction frequently. I even saw it in a NY Times article in the last week or so. It is one thing to be a stickler about matters that are largely aesthetic. I prefer to avoid using “however” to begin a sentence, but do not correct my students when they fail to match my taste. On the other hand, this construction is analytically flawed. It simply says something it does not intend to say. If we have all come to understand it, then the phrase is more akin to a Chinese character than a collection of words to be interpreted according to their grammar and syntax. I suppose some people couldn’t care less. Sadly, however, most would express it by saying “I could care less.” And therein lies this tale.
dank48 - October 6, 2011 at 9:19 am
Off the subject, not that that’s a first, but for my money “irregardless” would probably occur in formal writing only in the work of the sort of S.F.B. cretin who can represent regional dialog only by means of pseudo-phonetic spellings like “likker,” “vittles,” and “britches.” (Ever notice that amateur attempts at dialect almost always choose only these three words to trot out as instances of ignorant speech, as if booze, food, and clothing were the only conversational topics of interest?) This actually illustrates only that the author is ignorant of the correct pronunciation of “liquor,” “victuals,” and “breeches” (= “pants”).
I count five “only”s in the above paragraph. Some of them could be repositioned, but only at the expense of meaning.
DJ Weatherford - October 6, 2011 at 10:02 am
I consider both of these (“all are not” and “only”) “blinkers.” In speech, intonation helps us deliver the right meaning without a second thought; but in writing, that intonation is missing, and readers may have to rethink to get it. Moving the words a little just saves them that effort.
dank48 - October 6, 2011 at 10:33 am
“I could care less” is down there with “going ballistic” and “quantum leap,” also used with meanings diametrically opposed to the original, generally by folks who can’t be bothered to pay attention to what they’re saying.
Jens Fiederer - October 6, 2011 at 12:53 pm
I agree – this is not so much a gaffe but an example of how our language is not as pure as some editors would like it to be. While both readings could be defended in a classroom, and one might be spoken as “All lawyers are NOT-liars” (the logical interpretation that no actual English speaker would hold aside from pedantry, trying to bind “not” and “liars” into a single element equivalent to “truthtellers”) and the other would be “ALL lawyers are not LIARS.”
Wishing that all semantic roles could be deduced purely from syntax does not make it so.
In computer languages we have parentheses to help group elements logically – maybe in the end English will be replaced by C# and eliminate this confusion, but I rather doubt it.
Jens Fiederer - October 6, 2011 at 1:39 pm
(Nevertheless, “Not all lawyers are liars” sounds far better to me.)
oldcommprof - October 6, 2011 at 2:16 pm
I like dank. He posts only well thought out and well-written comments. If only I agreed with him every single time, but I only agree with him most of the time. The rest of the time the nits I pick are only minor. But that’s only rarely — and not this time.
epearlstein - October 6, 2011 at 3:16 pm
And, of course “All that glitters is not gold.”
jffoster - October 6, 2011 at 7:28 pm
I don’t suppose it occurred to either the poster original or commenters to wonder whether any Linguistics research had been done on the scope of negation, the scope of quantifiers, how they interact, and why there might be dialect differences in the way they interact.
midevilprof - October 7, 2011 at 3:17 pm
It’s where the “all” goes in these examples, if you ask me. It could be that “this is not available in all areas” is ambiguous. It is different from “in all areas this is not available”… isn’t it? In other words, I see your point, but because you’ve moved the “all”, you’ve created something like an orange to compare to the article’s apple.
DJ Weatherford - October 7, 2011 at 7:29 pm
Me, too.
marka - October 10, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Well … not ‘all’ know what is meant. I’m a lawyer, and I’ve had many a contract case hinge on something like this.
Actually, much in our English language -can- be ambiguous. Just ask the lawyer on the other side of the matter! ;-)
yandoodan - October 10, 2011 at 6:38 pm
Only if you are Little Buttercup.
Otherwise, it’s “Not all that glitters is gold.”
arrtist - October 13, 2011 at 11:17 am
As for your word-game, I prefer Shakespeare’s, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”.
Rule of Law my ass.
dank48 - October 14, 2011 at 9:25 am
Thanks. I’d be worried only about someone who agreed with me every single time, but not about someone who agreed with me only most of the time. Since I pick nits professionally, it says a lot about you that you can do the same for me.