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[hiphopscholar]

Can someone please share with me the steps I need to take to become college president?

[kaysixteen]

You could always found your own college.

[yellowtractor]

Occasionally one even comes up for sale.  What's Antioch doing with its Ohio campus these days?

[voxprincipalis]

Huh. I hardly know where to move this to. We don't have a "The Fact That You're Asking This Question Means That Whatever You're Asking About Is Not For You" forum.

I guess I'll put it in the Administrative Track. Or, better, Chairs and Deans?

VP

[yellowtractor]

Can you merge it into the RMP/stats thread?

[zharkov]

I actually had a former college president as a prof.  (When back to teaching after being a president.)  So what he did was:

1. Get a PhD from Harvard.
2. Get a tenure track job, make your way up the ranks, become department chair.
3. Get a job as a dean (or provost).
4. Get a job as a president.

The time between Harvard PhD and moving to the dean job was 15 years.

[helpful]

Are you talking about college as in community college, or college as in X University? There is a difference.

Or you could just skip being College President and jump to President of X Country. There are a few countries that need new Presidents.

[dr_alcott]

OK, I'll bite.

Brian, I see that you've also posted this on the C-Student thread:

Well this was me all the way through grad school. I paid for it and I am still paying for it when it wastime to apply for a phd program. So now I have to go back and regather myself with my grades. So make an concerted effort to get that student to see down the road. I have a goal of trying to be a college president but I have to blow somethings out of the water to make that happen oneday.

Even if you were incredibly smart, disciplined, successful, and lucky, you'd have a long road ahead of you. If you're able to get your grades up, plan on working your butt off to get into a PhD program, and then plan on working your butt off to find any kind of academic job, and then plan on working your butt off for at least a couple more decades to work your way up to the presidency. In other words, if everything works in your favor, you might get there in another 30 years.

But if you're actually a C student, then you should change your career plan now.

[fourhats]

Oh, and don't apply yourself.  After all the above steps, let a headhunter come after you, or get multiple nominations.

[mended_drum]

Go to a dozen or so college or university web sites and read the short biographies of their presidents.  That will tell you the most typical routes to that job.  For now, anyway.

[irhack]

I've had the pleasure of personally knowing and working with two people who went on to become college presidents. It is as outlined above. Tenure - Dept Chair - Dean - Provost - President. Unless it's a Catholic college and then I think the bishop just decides. You could join holy orders if you want to go that route.

[aandsdean]

I've had the pleasure of personally knowing and working with two people who went on to become college presidents. It is as outlined above. Tenure - Dept Chair - Dean - Provost - President. Unless it's a Catholic college and then I think the bishop just decides. You could join holy orders if you want to go that route.

I'm on the penultimate step on this particular ladder.  This is about it, unless you want to work for a state university in Florida or some other places, in which case you have to learn to read without moving your lips, get elected to the state legislature, do a bunch of silly things for four years or so, and then get yourself appointed president.

For me:  Time from completion of Virginia Ph.D. to deanship:  12 years.  However, I had a FT/TT job for three years before that.

[cj405]

Can someone please share with me the steps I need to take to become college president?

I hear a good first step is to become the president of your fraternity.

[drgrabow]

A mentor of mine used to say, wanting to be President should be a disqualification from being president.  That being said, I think a lot of previous posters are caught in an old model. A lot of Presidents now possess law degrees and experience with lobbying or with fund raising.  It used to be that Presidents needed a strong scholarship record, now they really want to know that you know how to manage external constituencies.  If you were at the beginning of your career and knew right now that you wanted to be president, I think you might want to consider law school and striving for a VP of Development position. 

[aandsdean]

A mentor of mine used to say, wanting to be President should be a disqualification from being president.  That being said, I think a lot of previous posters are caught in an old model. A lot of Presidents now possess law degrees and experience with lobbying or with fund raising.  It used to be that Presidents needed a strong scholarship record, now they really want to know that you know how to manage external constituencies.  If you were at the beginning of your career and knew right now that you wanted to be president, I think you might want to consider law school and striving for a VP of Development position. 

I have personally worked for two presidents who came up through a version of this model; one of them was excellent, one was a disaster.  I am not sure it's going to turn into a dominant model, though it's certainly better than the "appoint the ex-legislator because he'll be pliable and suitably submissive to the fools in state government.