First Person

A Lame Duck President Looks Back

Article tools

Printer friendly	E-mail article	Subscribe	Order reprints
	Discuss any Chronicle article in our forums
Latest Headlines First Person Just Visiting Again When his tenure-track search fell short, a Ph.D. faced a fundamental choice about dealing with the disappointment. The Adjunct Track It's All in the Bag Teaching part time sometimes makes a Ph.D. feel like a failure, but it also allows her life as a parent to work. Heads Up Keep Your Emeriti Close How can deans and chairs find appropriate ways to involve retired professors in the life of the college? First Person An End and a Beginning Accepting the possibility of tenure denial and dealing with the reality of it are two different things. Moving Up 'A' Hire vs. 'the' Hire Following the 5 principles of external hiring can keep your search for a dean from getting derailed. Resource Salaries: Faculty | Administrative Presidential pay: Private | Public Financial resources: Salary and cost-of-living calculators Career resources: Academic | Nonacademic Library: Previous articles by topic | by date | by column Career Talk, Ms. Mentor, and more... Landing your first job On the tenure track Mid-career and on Administrative careers Nonacademic careers for Ph.D.'s Talk about your career Blogs

By Kathryn Mohrman

Last September I announced that this, my ninth year as president of Colorado College, would also be my last. Sometime this coming summer a new person will become the 12th president of this wonderful institution, which makes me a lame duck.

My decision to step down is not a sign of unhappiness -- I love the college and I've loved serving as its president. Rather, it represents a conviction that one should not stay too long as president of a college. It's always better to leave a little too soon than a little too late. When a president remains in office too long, not only does the individual suffer, but also the institution. A kind of paralysis sets in: new initiatives are unlikely, morale may drop, and the uncertainties about when a new leader will be coming may provoke anxiety.

I announced my decision in September, nine months before my departure, to allow the trustees enough time to have my successor in place just as I leave for new adventures. From all I've been told, the search process is going well; a strong group of trustees, professors, administrators, and students is working diligently to identify just the right person to take the college to the next level.

And me? My first decision was not to be a candidate for another presidency. I've often joked that if my fairy godmother had created the perfect job for me, she could not have done better than the presidency of Colorado College. There is no way I could match the joys of these past nine years so I won't even try. Instead I intend to focus my talents in other directions.

I am enjoying the process of thinking about other opportunities. It is exhilarating to move off the traditional career path and consider a wider range of options. I'm much like a new liberal-arts graduate thinking about transferable skills, presenting to possible employers a person who can learn quickly and bring new perspectives to a situation. My biggest advantage over the members of the class of 2002, however, is that I have 30 years of work experience.

The generosity of friends, colleagues, and friends of friends has been overwhelming. As I began thinking about what I might do next, I made a list of people to contact, from association executives to campus-based colleagues to international links. Many of them were happy to suggest other people for me to meet -- and those individuals were equally supportive. Now, dozens of conversations later, I'm looking at possibilities from foundation work to executive-search consulting to teaching abroad. Each possibility has wonderful attractions; each has definite drawbacks. Depending on what is most on my mind on any given day, I can imagine myself doing wildly different activities in Hong Kong, New York, Denver, or Madagascar. Of course, even if all of these opportunities actually turn into job offers, they won't all come at the same time, so I may be forced to say yes or no to one offer before I know whether another is really a choice. Since any one of these could be challenging, satisfying, and rewarding, I am allowing some element of fate and other people's schedules to influence the direction of my future.

While waiting for possibilities to turn into opportunities, I am working hard to leave my successor with as few hot issues and as clear a desk as possible. There are several complicated projects pending on campus that, if not resolved before I leave, should at least be more clearly delineated than they are now. When I took office, I recall, I had several difficult issues on my agenda, including a major athletics infraction and the fate of fraternities and sororities to handle -- thank goodness I won't pass along problems of that magnitude! Also, some donors and friends definitely connect to the college through me, so I want to introduce them to others on campus to keep those relationships alive. And, of course, once the new president is chosen, I hope to help her or him learn the college culture and the details of the job in any way I can.

What have I learned as president of Colorado College? Probably the most important is the fact that you can't please all of the people all of the time -- not an original insight, of course, but an important one for anyone who wants to be successful. Especially in my first years, I was eager to win the approval of the many constituencies of the college, but especially faculty members and trustees. (I don't think a president at an independent institution can be a success without the support of those two groups.) I spent too much of my time trying to figure out what would please them -- and of course one can never totally satisfy.

Instead, I should have paid more attention to my own internal sense of priorities. Over the years I have learned that my gut instincts are better than I was sometimes willing to admit. For example, I interview every candidate for every tenure-track position on campus, so over nine years I have developed a good sense of "fit" in this teaching-oriented institution. On a few occasions I have let others persuade me that a candidate should be hired over my objections, and I wish I had been more forceful. On many other issues, too -- determining fund-raising priorities, deciding what to take to the board and what to do administratively, handling difficult student issues -- my first inclinations have often been the best. Today, I am more willing to defend my opinions with an evocation of "gut instinct" (based on values and experience) as well as rational arguments.

Leaving a position is a time to reflect on your accomplishments as well as lessons learned. I have come to see that a number of small steps, taken over years, can add up to significant accomplishments for an institution. Each individual decision seems almost inconsequential, but the cumulative effect matters. I've often joked about my "guerrilla theory of administration," by which I mean that people don't often recognize the import of any one step. For example, my commitment to internationalization of the campus is no secret, but it has been achieved through a series of decisions regarding budgets, hiring, resource allocation -- and some fortuitous gifts from generous donors. A president must be in office long enough to identify a larger issue and take the seemingly small steps in order to have a significant impact on her or his campus.

Something else I've learned, but only slowly, is the importance of the president's bully pulpit. I've always been suspicious of the "vision thing," especially with people who talk all the time about "my vision." I believe that strategic directions for an institution, at least one that is fundamentally healthy, are collaboratively developed within the community, not presented from on high. When I first became president I thought people would look most carefully at what I did, not what I said. But I came to realize that no one saw the full range of things I did, so no one gave me credit for all my accomplishments. I also realized that a president needs to create a sense of excitement and shared purpose -- if not a vision, at least a well-articulated direction for the future. If I were starting over, I would spend more time on that articulation, in one-on-one conversations as well as major public occasions.

Another obvious point, but one that is often hard to learn, is that you can't do everything. My first year I attended virtually every event to which I was invited, mostly to figure out what was really important. But over time I have become more selective, realizing that this reception or that lecture is very important to the organizers (who always want and appreciate the presence of the president) but may not be all that important for the long-term well-being of the college.

Similarly, I have been invited to serve on a number of boards and community organizations in the city and state. (Being female probably increased the number of invitations.) In each case I tried to think carefully about the value for Colorado College of my participation. Is this an activity that has direct impact on the college? If so, does it require the president, or can another administrator represent the college's interests? At the same time, I sought opportunities in statewide policy groups and national higher-education organizations in which my involvement would give me insights on important issues or where Colorado College would gain important visibility.

Management gurus often distinguish between what is urgent and what is important. I found that to be a very helpful distinction. I often joke about the "crisis du jour" -- problems that are intense at the moment but will be forgotten in six months. The most important things are often issues that no one is asking the president to tackle but will have significant impact in the long run. We need to keep asking, "What are we missing?" as well as, "What is the most important thing to be doing?" I have also worked hard to spend time talking with senior administrators and campus leaders about possible priorities for the college in the future, topics that often get short shrift in the press of daily business. Leaders need to focus on the big issues, the long-range issues, often the issues that are not urgent at the moment. To do that, I learned to say no to more of the day-to-day things.

Today, less than two months from commencement, I have very mixed feelings about the prospect of leaving. These are not second thoughts about my decision to step down, but rather the sadness that comes with the prospect of saying goodbye to wonderful people, of leaving an environment in which I have had the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of young people, of relinquishing the opportunity to make further improvements in the life of Colorado College. But others can also contribute to the quality of this liberal-arts-and-sciences college, perhaps in ways that I cannot. This is a time to give someone else a chance to experience the challenges and satisfactions of this college presidency.

Saying goodbye also means I can explore other opportunities for myself, ones that Colorado College cannot provide. So while I am a lame duck as outgoing president, I also have the chance to fly off in new directions.