What Does It Take to Be a University President?

There’s a moment I think about often that tells you pretty much everything you need to know about being a university president. I was in the dining hall talking with some new students during their orientation. One of them was a little starry-eyed about the start of his college experience. He said, “Wow, you’re a president. I’ve never talked to a president before.” I assured him I hadn’t either when I was his age. Then he said with envy, “Everybody reports to you. You’re the boss of everybody.”

And that’s what most people think about the role of a university president, isn’t it? But I was a few years into my presidency at that point and had developed a very different perspective on the job and how I wanted to do it. I looked at the student and said, “I actually think of it the other way around: I’m responsible to all of you.”

The student seemed surprised, perhaps even confused, by my response, but now, if he ever decides to pursue a university presidency, he’ll have a better idea of what to expect from the job than most. Those weighty responsibilities—and the way they vary from institution to institution and president to president—are not something university presidents discuss often. We should, because one of our responsibilities is to better prepare the next generation of academic leaders for success.

Long before I began to consider a leadership role in higher education, I imagined a university to be like an orchestra. Every individual musician matters, but there is no symphony without collective effort. More than a dozen years into my work as a university president, the metaphor holds: each university department is an instrumental section, bringing something different and essential to the music. On stage, the conductor ensures all those pieces work together in concert. On campus, the president is the one listening to, tuning up, and directing the entire university. That’s the job. And when someone or something plays off-key or disrupts the rhythm, the president is ultimately responsible. The buck stops here.

Read more in the book Tough Decisions: The University President’s Journey.