From Rachel Toor
Anyone who has been in a faculty senate meeting knows that presidents get it from below. One chancellor told me that a system president was set to receive a vote of no confidence from the faculty on the day of his inauguration. Faculty are like little kids in the grocery store and tend to throw their temper tantrums in public, not caring at all how they appear.
Boards, however, do most of their bad behavior behind closed doors. A horse-wise president wrote to tell me that a board member “corrected” her for writing “champing at the bit,” which obviously should be “chomping.” [Um, how about checking the dictionary before you go all pedant-y, pal?]
A current president talked about how a board member complained that she appeared in a photograph wearing earrings, a necklace, and a pin [gasp!]. A number of others have told me that their board members have recommended that they hire a personal stylist.
Another told a story of how the previous president’s wife used to come downstairs on mornings of board retreats to find passed-out and hungover trustees draped over couches and lying in corners.
Presidents are told how to write, how to dress, and to loosen up if they find a stray hand on their butt.
Good trustees know when things are going off the rails and often call in marriage counselors consultants to help fix relationship problems between them and their one direct report. It is always a pleasure to hear from presidents about how board members support their work. These people should get medals. Or ponies. I wish we could send them all ponies.
Last week, we joked (kind of) about the wacky (or worse) things boards do. But some of the tales I’ve heard in the Las Vegas that is The Sandbox are truly chilling. At first, I found it hard to believe these you-can’t-make-this-shit-up stories.
I’ve now had enough of these same icky conversations that when a president tells me how they’ve been treated by undeserving-of-pony board members, I can offer some reassurance. It’s not you, it’s them. And, it’s not only you.
An old friend who happens to read The Sandbox (because we’re old friends) said something I keep thinking about. Even though he has a Ph.D. in physics, he has worked only in industry and risen to Master of the Universe status. You know, the kind of guy you find on boards. He makes fun of me, as only old friends can, by saying, “Oh there you go again, boo-hooing about how hard it is to be a president.”
He is someone who has long just fired people who didn’t do the work he needed them to do. “Um,” I said, “you know precisely jack about how higher ed works—ever heard of shared governance, you giant doofus?” And yet, he loves me still.
What the Masters of the Universe and those who have never been in the job don’t realize is if you’re looking for a presidency, you must do serious due diligence to suss out the vibes of the place and the board. And then you have to lean in on serious professor skills and educate what we in the biz call “resistant learners.” You could still be in for a rough ride, especially if the chair who hires you rotates off.
The saddest thing may be the toll these jobs can take on family members, the collateral damage of too many presidencies.
