From Rachel Toor
When Doug Lederman and Scott Jaschik left The Chronicle of Higher Education to start Inside Higher Ed two decades ago, the big idea was to provide free higher education journalism online. Success!
A few years ago, IHE began a paid membership to offer a little something extra. People signed up because they knew and appreciated Doug and Scott and wanted to keep the news free and available to all. The Insider program hosted some webinars and offered event discounts and some research reports, but not much else.
In March 2023, Doug Lederman and I had a mind-meet-cute after we’d known each other 25 years. I was eager for a new challenge. He needed someone to create a leadership newsletter to flesh out The Insider offerings.
We talked to people to see what might be useful.
Not one person said they wanted more email. Or even, more news. While everyone read IHE and The Chronicle regularly, many complained about higher ed media, which is no different from other news organizations that skew toward “if it bleeds, it leads.”
No one felt they needed more tough love. There’s plenty of that to go around.
Most former and many current presidents are quick to offer advice, but rarely does anyone like to hear it. Plus, people said they only cared about what leaders in their own sector had to offer. Higher ed is a diverse ecosystem and, well, if you’re not in my niche, never mind.
When we first toyed with the idea of anonymous contributions, some said if they didn’t know who was writing or their pedigree, they wouldn’t be interested in reading. Higher ed is also, as we know, a caste system.
We heard a lot of not this, not that.
So, what did leaders want? A sense they were not alone.
No one had much bandwidth to read. One former president said he’d only look at cartoons. Everyone needed a break from the heavy stuff—and this was before Congress got all pissy.
We figured if we slipped into folks’ inboxes early Saturday mornings, we might provide a quick read over a cup of coffee before the deluge. Nutritious and delicious. Maybe a little spicy. Something like what Lingua Franca did for professors in the old days of zines.
We decided to try to ask for authentic, first-person personal writing from people in a way that was safe and made the interior struggles of a challenging role visible.
It didn’t take long to figure out who was going to like our little Sandbox, named for the computer science practice of creating a tightly controlled place to try things out, to run programs that will not harm the operating system, to play. Anyone who (understandably) wants credit for crafting essays, we steer toward the editors of the Views or Career Advice sections of IHE. Writing for The Sandbox, like participating in peer review, is a service to the profession.
Presidents, at least those in our self-selected group (which includes many bold-face names as well as those well-known mostly in their own community or sector) are generous. They are optimists. True believers. Doers and thinkers. They are ambitious, driven, able to leap from social event to social event like superheroes. The presidency is an endurance race.
The (awesome, brilliant, wonderful) presidents who write for us are willing to get real. They have come to trust us to protect them—all conversations are off the record—and many say they find solace in being able to, you know, open up.
The goal here is never to tell people how to do their jobs. As one president recently quipped—translating and adapting an Italian proverb—“When everyone thinks they know how colleges operate, every turdwagon is an expert on the presidency.”
So, while we have only current and former presidents and chancellors writing for us, we want everyone to be able to read this quirky newsletter, especially those who work closely with leaders (cabinet members, trustees, faculty). And we want to give those who aspire to the presidency an idea of what the job might hold for them.
Aside from editing to make the prose less “presidential,” correcting typos and grammar mistakes, and scrubbing anything so specific as to be identifiable, we let presidents speak for themselves, warts and all, even if it doesn't conform to the carefully edited style of IHE.
We launched The Sandbox in late August 2023. Early on, we hoped to get readers involved. And we needed to state clearly that we welcomed contributions from leaders in every sector and make our case for what diversity, equity, and inclusion looked like in this context. So, we asked presidents (those not yet writing for us) to send in photos of their pets and flaunt their swag.
Turns out, it’s easier to ask for a piece of writing for which you get no credit, no money, and no prestige than it is to scrounge up cute pet pics. Oh well. That’s why there are always photos of my mutt, Harry, and occasionally Doug’s Truro.
For the intros at the top of each newsletter, I take full responsibility. The snark, pop culture references, ill-informed opinions—all me. (Also, the serial commas, which flout journalistic style.) The art direction by Jenny Kim, with illustrations by Alena Selezneva, gave us a distinctive look.
While Doug hasn’t written as much as I’ve nagged hoped he would—he’s been busy running a news operation—my brother-from-another-mother has been fully involved in this project. His knowledge of the industry (as I've learned to call it from him, much to the shock of my faculty-member self) is encyclopedic, and people know they can trust him.
If there was ever a year to focus on leadership in higher ed, for better or worse, this past one was it. We wish we could offer at least a slice of birthday cake to the many presidents and chancellors who took time away from pressing obligations to make this newsletter possible. You know who you are (we'll never tell!) and know how much we value you. We continue to welcome new leaders into the what-happens-in-Vegas fold.
As we head into a fall that promises to be another challenging time, we take our mottos from medicine: “First, do no harm.”
And (from a TV doctor), “How can we help?”
