First Person

Landing a Presidency

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By Joseph Drew

Readers may recall from my previous columns that I was, up until June, the head of a college in Europe. How has my search for a new presidency in American higher education fared?

Overall, I'd probably rate it an A, although at times it seemed to be more accurately an incomplete.

I've discovered that the argument that you need to be a college president in order to become a president -- which I articulated in the first of these articles and explained as a bedrock to my whole scientific approach to the pursuit of a new presidency -- is only part of the story.

It's an important but not sufficient precondition. You need other preconditions, too, like connections, timing, initiative, and finally, luck.

All of those factors came together for me at the end of the spring semester.

Just as my second article came out I was in the final stages of a presidential search in one of the world's most attractive locations. But it was outside of the United States, again, and my family nixed the idea. A mix of patriotism, the obligation of my immigration-lawyer wife to her clients, the pull on my 13-year-old son of his current school, and my reluctance to leave my family once again for an extended period abroad led me to contact the institution late in the process and withdraw.

I had already left the presidency at Anglo-American College in Prague and had moved into the chancellor's job. In the months that followed, I spent my time finishing out the year as chancellor and simultaneously hunting for a job.

During that transition, my main activity became a scholarly conference I had been planning for a year on federalism and the proposed new European Union constitution. It was held with great success in Prague at the end of March, sponsored primarily by the Washington-based Association to Unite the Democracies. Scholars from around the world presented outstanding and thoughtful papers.

For Prague, a new era opened as the Czech Republic "returned" to Europe with its accession to the European Union. And a new era opened for me as well as I landed a presidency at a different sort of institution.

In my last article, I mentioned that I planned to do some consulting work last winter and early spring for a young, dynamic, entrepreneurial university run by former colleagues I like and admire. The for-profit University of Northern Virginia began as a U.S.-based graduate school seeking to serve foreign students, offering an M.B.A. program, a master's in computer science, and certificates in computer studies and English.

My consulting work for the university turned out to be quite productive and, as a result, I was appointed in May to be the president of the university's Virginia campus, as the institution begins to branch out overseas. I was also named to the corporation's Board of Directors.

In my new role, I have been able to put to work my experience as a professor, a vice president, a dean, and a president. One of my first tasks has been to help expand the curriculum and our program offerings. We've already added a master's degree in education, among others, and more are in the works.

Changes in this country's visa policies have compelled the university to reinvent itself. Those policies have made it very difficult for international students to obtain visas to study here (something that I think will do enormous and long-lasting harm to our ability to lead in science, international business, and technology).

As a result, part of my job is to work with the university's new foreign-based branch campuses as they come into operation. The university will be going through a reaccreditation process in 2006, so I'll be spending a lot of time helping the new campuses to prepare for that. The university's business plan anticipates up to 20,000 students worldwide by that time, so it will be a major commitment of time and effort.

One very enjoyable aspect of my new job: I gave the commencement address to M.B.A. candidates in China on June 19, and followed that up by teaching an intensified undergraduate course at a partner school in Hong Kong.

Finally, and most gratifying of all, the new university is making possible plans that I nurtured while at the helm of Anglo-American College over the past three years.

The great need in Prague, as I saw it, was to change Czech higher education so that it would not just cater to the top students but serve the citizenry in all the ways that universities do elsewhere in the modern world. I had come to believe that American ideas of partnership, community service, applied research, and the coordination of university curricula with business or industrial demands could contribute meaningfully to the makeover of Czech higher education.

Anglo-American, a nonprofit undergraduate college, was not limber enough to be able to innovate outside its mission. The University of Northern Virginia is different. The amazing and gratifying result: As of next month, we are opening a branch campus in Prague. Accreditation is pending for three other campuses -- in Vancouver, British Columbia, London, and northern Cyprus -- and other campuses are in the works.

The new campus in Prague is being built from the ground up, financed by the university and investors from around the globe. As an overseas branch campus of the University of Northern Virginia, it will be authorized to offer accredited American degrees in a variety of fields. We've been working nonstop with Czech and American associates for several months, and the campus is now a fully established, legal Czech entity.

I've been named chairman of its Board of Directors, so my involvement in higher education in the Czech Republic continues -- a perfect circle connecting my experience there as a president in Europe with my new position as a president and university director of a global institution headquartered here.

Employment at a for-profit institution is a departure for me, but one I find exciting. As I sat atop a tall building last month in Hong Kong, looking out over the beautiful vista of the world's busiest harbor, I reflected upon the many benefits that boundless energy, applied intelligence, and the free market have brought to millions of people. Surely, there is room for competition and free enterprise to partner with the more traditional nonprofit institutions in higher education.

What will the future hold for the University of Northern Virginia, for its Virginia campus, for the new Prague campus, for me? I don't know exactly, but it has turned out to be a great year so far. and I hope the good luck continues.