From Rachel Toor
Sara Custer, Inside Higher Ed’s editor in chief and my (nominal) boss, left D.C. and came to the other Washington last weekend.
She had been invited to give a talk at my university’s welcome back breakfast, and came early to hang out. After warning her about bears, moose, and big cats, I made her we hiked to the top of Mt. Spokane, did a four-mile community road race (where I pushed her to drop the pace by two minutes for the final mile), and she went to a Spokane Velocity soccer game with my husband, Toby. (I don’t sit outside when the temperature drops below 76 degrees.)
We also had Gonzaga’s new president, Katia Passerini, over for dinner. The conversation was off the record, but this was not a Sandbox chat. We often have presidents come to the IHE office for a visit, but in this case the office came to the president (and I was spared being on Zoom). Sara asked trenchant journalist questions and I cracked dumb jokes, which Katia graciously laughed at.
On Monday morning, Sara delivered a talk that depressed enlightened EWU’s faculty, staff, and administrators about the messed-up stuff going on in higher ed these days. She focused on up-to-the-minute policy news, novel financial challenges, and the increasingly creepy campus climate issues. She managed to end on a few positive notes, noting that this moment has led some institutions to reflect on how they could improve, and giving examples around three-year degrees and promising work with AI. She advised institutions like ours to tap into alumni networks to make the argument for higher ed (“Go, Eags!”). It’s always better, she reminded us, to have someone else do your bragging for you.
And so, in that vein, I’ll just say that IHE’s editor in chief is as good a speaker as she is a boss (even though I tell her all the time she’s not the boss of me). After having to step into the big honkin’ shoes of IHE’s founders, Sara has proved herself an astute leader of a talented newsroom at a time when the news just won’t stop. Her superpower, or one of them, is that she is always her smart, sharp Okie self.
While there are a zillion different ways to lead, the good presidents I encounter are like Sara. They know who they are, what they’re good at, where they need help, and how to show up as themselves. In other words, it boils down to authenticity.
Readers of The Sandbox know I have no patience for presidential-sounding prose. In fact, I’ve had to ask people who have submitted pieces to go back to their computer and rewrite what they sent me in an email. Writing in the first person is hard. Shedding the armor you need to defend yourself as an academic takes practice. And finding your authentic voice takes time, often decades.
Often new presidents seem to be doing the rhetorical equivalent of trying to wear a new church-going suit that is too stiff, putting on dresses that make them look like they’re playing grown-up, or donning (and then clutching) their grandma’s pearls. It comes out as overcompensating and makes them look as uncomfy as everyone around them feels.
Presidents are afraid of getting fired (reasonable), afraid of saying the wrong thing (ditto), afraid of no-confidence votes (whatever), afraid of the violent threats (frighteningly real) that come at them from all quarters. Most seasoned presidents say they understand they have to be prepared to lose their job at any moment.
What I see in the leaders who are succeeding in these hellacious trying times is people who always show up as authentically themselves and are clearly comfortable in their own meatbag. Those intent on climbing the prestige ladder or burnishing their careers? Well, I don’t talk to them, and they have no use for this wackadoodle newsletter.
