Moving Up

What Next? Life After the Presidency

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By Kathryn Mohrman

Six months after my departure as president of Colorado College, I have discovered that there is indeed life after the presidency.

As I chronicled in an earlier column, after nine years at the helm at Colorado, I decided I was ready to move on. Many successful presidents go from one campus to another. Certainly you may be more effective in a second presidency after learning from the events, good and bad, in the first. But I decided early on that I would not pursue a second presidency. My time at Colorado College was a good match between my talents and the college's needs; I doubt that I could find another location in which such a fortuitous combination of circumstances would emerge. No, it was time to look at other opportunities.

I am writing this article from Asia, where I am spending a year as a Fulbright scholar at Chinese University of Hong Kong. This year is a follow-up to the sabbatical I spent in Sichuan Province in 2000. That experience enhanced my fascination with China, and Hong Kong provides another window on the culture. My faculty appointment is in the department of government and public administration; I taught my first course last fall, a public policy workshop." My students were members of a highly selective leadership program, which means that they come from many different majors across the campus. They also represented some of the best young minds in Hong Kong. My course focused on higher-education reform in Hong Kong, a topic that proved timely when the minister of education proposed the merger of Chinese University with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. So we were reading about education reform in class assignments as well as in the daily newspapers.

Unlike most Fulbright scholars, I have two sets of responsibilities. As the director of research and development for the Hong Kong America Center, I work with a consortium of five local universities to strengthen academic exchange between Hong Kong and the United States. This Fulbright slot involves a substantial amount of program development, proposal writing, collaboration with the five universities, and -- of course -- fund raising. It is one of the few positions listed in the Fulbright catalog that specifically requires administrative experience. I can see why.

If I had thought I might feel wistful about what I left behind, I haven't had time to be homesick. There are so many new things to learn, from how to get around on the public transportation system to what Cantonese dishes are my new favorites. And working at a new university means learning a new campus, a new library system, a new set of names and faces. The fact that the British system prevails here, for the most part, gives an extra dose of "foreignness" to the experience, as I meet "pro-vice chancellors" and deal with the "bursary."

It's wonderful to be back in the classroom and involved with students in a sustained way. As president I did some team teaching but carving out the time was difficult. Here I luxuriate in whole afternoons in the library preparing my syllabus or reading about Chinese higher education. (The library at Chinese University is excellent, with holdings that compare favorably with American libraries; I could find everything I needed for my course on the shelves or online.) As a visiting scholar I also have the time to meet with students in small groups, talk with individuals about their plans after graduation, write letters of recommendation. It has been a wonderful reminder of the reasons why we all got into education in the first place.

So what advice might other presidents take from my experience? First, and most important, right after you step down from a presidency, leave town.

You don't need to go halfway around the world as I did, but you owe it two your successor to be out of the way, at least at the beginning of his or her administration. The new president needs to connect with the institution, the faculty, and the alumni without any interference from the previous leader. And you don't want to provide temptation for people to talk with you about the new person or her early actions.

If people need or want to consult you, let them ask. You will find, however, that your successor will want to create a new set of priorities; he or she will naturally do things differently than you did. The institution will thrive under new leadership, but also in new directions that you were not likely to go. Stay connected with good friends and colleagues, but let the future of the campus unfold without you.

Many former presidents maintain faculty positions on their former campuses; in some cases that relationship is at least as satisfying as the presidency. But I would recommend a period away before taking up professorial responsibilities.

My second piece of advice is to find something that will consume your energies and excite your passions. For me, being in Asia is exactly that. I face new challenges all the time, from trying to figure out the similarities and differences between Cantonese and Mandarin to taking lessons in Chinese brush painting. It doesn't matter exactly what is most compelling to you. Just do it. You have worked very hard as a college president, and much of the time you deferred your own desires for the good of the institution. This is a chance to follow your heart.

My other corollary, however, is to find something that will not consume all of your time and energy. The presidency is often a 24/7 job, and now you have a chance for a more normal life. I find that I sleep a lot more than I did over the past nine years, and I feel much better as a result. I walk to work as often as possible (a real challenge on a hilly campus) so I can enjoy the exercise rather than being a slave to a calendar with every day completely scheduled. And I'm taking advantage of campus holidays and invitations to lecture in various countries in the region.

My Fulbright has many of the same qualities as a sabbatical, including some time to reflect rather than being expected constantly to act. It's a chance to think about my own values and priorities, to discover once again the joys of artistic endeavors, to read novels rather than memos at bedtime, to write more letters than I ever had time to write as president.

Most of our campuses are encouraging study abroad as a way to prepare students for the rigors and challenges of globalization. My year in Hong Kong is my own version of that. I reflect more often on what it means to be an American when I am far away from home. The United States looks quite different from the other side of the globe; sorting out some of that is a challenging exercise. And it is a humbling experience to be visibly a minority, a status reinforced whenever I am forced to deal in Chinese rather than English.

A final piece of advice: You have a chance to be a learner once again, in whatever way makes sense to you. Rather than facilitating the teaching and learning process for others as a president, you have a chance to spend more of your time as a student yourself. Relish this return to the fundamentals of academic life -- it is a wonderful experience.