Has the position of University or College President become overly burdensome and too much for one person? More importantly, the diffused nature of what a college president does has warped away from the functional and moved into one of the most dreaded aspects and deadening set of responsibilities that can leave people in that position burned out, depressed, and frustrated by the toll it takes on their psyche.

Perhaps the time has come to split the presidency down the middle, or into thirds, such that we have a couple or trio of Presidents who handle the different aspects so that they are able to do it more effectively, efficiently, and each person doesn't have to abandon their personal lives to be successful. This can be done at little or no change in cost to the institution as the exorbitant salaries University Presidents make could quite easily be divided into half or thirds and divided by job function.

Problem

There are at least three to four militating factors that are driving me to think through this particular hack.

1) Over time, the job of college or university president has become an all encompassing, 24/7 position where the President is expected to be an expert in relating with students, alumni, donors, politicians, staff, faculty and a whole host of other stake holders all the while living on the campus and being entirely accessible to the masses. Would Steve Jobs subject himself to such continuous buffeting?

2) Much of the job of college or university president has become slanted toward one aim - massive capital fund raising, shaking hands with donors and closing the deal for securing multi-millions of dollars by wining and dinning people such that it pulls them away from the things that most college presidents should enjoy, working with and for the students.

3) Beyond fund raising, which tends to be the easiest aspect of a president's job to judge success, there is an expectation that this person be a top performer in all categories of the job description, which much like expecting expert researchers to be excellent teachers is more myth than reality.

4) If a president is a fantastic fund raiser, that person is rarely seen on campus.

Solution

Instead of placing the burden of leading a college or university on the shoulders of one heroic style leader, perhaps it's time we split the position into two or three areas of expertise so that we have a president for each category. Say, we have a president who focuses on Alumni, Corporate Relations and Fund Raising. Another on Campus Operations and Student Relations, and perhaps still another on faculty affairs and research.

Now, some will say, what? Aaron, are you nuts? We already have provosts, vice presidents of all stripes, and you want to add more complexity at the top level? Well, indeed, we do have such posts on college and universities across the USA and the globe, but who's to say that this model or design for how to organize our operations is the correct one. I'm suggesting the job sharing idea as a means of cracking the frame of how we organize educational operations on the whole, because, clearly as we can tell, they are not altogether efficient or effective means to an end.

Alternatively, we can suggest that we push the leadership down a level. Instead of having a college president as the titular or figurative head of the institution - some one to preside royally over the commencement and ceremonial aspects of the institution - perhaps we make the division of and job sharing happen immediately by simply removing the presidential layer altogether and empowering those at the vice presidential or provost level to step up and really lead in those categories, and govern the college as a collective rather than have one person at the helm.

Practical Impact

The effect of splitting the president position into two or three people may be energizing and allow us to focus our searches for people to emphasize skills in each of the categories necessary to run the operation, rather than trying to hit a home run each and every time you hire a person at that level. It's very challenging to find one person who can master each area in office of the presidency. But, with two people, we may find that we compartmentalize the operation - getting these folks to collaborate in an ongoing way - such that you get less burn out and more productivity from both of them. Financially, my recommendation is to hire two people at half the cost a college or university spends, so the direct hit on the bottom line would only be an additional persons' benefits rather than a need to increase the line item for salaries at the presidential level.

Perhaps more importantly, you would get better attention and more satisfaction of the people who work and live under each of the service or job function areas.

If we remove the presidential role - and we empower the vice presidents and provost to lead the whole operation, you already have division by functional area, and you have saved the salaries for your president, and that could be a win for the whole institution.

First Steps

Action Plan A:

re-craft your presidential job description into two or three functional areas of responsibility
divide up the salaries appropriately - evenly is my suggestion in order to ensure that people view themselves on the same level
Open up the positions to the active job market
If you enjoy your current president, allow that person to apply for one or more of the posts
If you find your president over paid and under productive, fire her or him and let the process work

Action Plan B:

Alternatively, you could elevate the status of the Vice Presidents and Provost positions by:
firing the president
removing the vice from the titles
requiring the group of newly appointed presidents to meet regularly to discuss overarching concerns and set the strategic direction for the whole operation

Regardless which plan you activate, you should ensure that your strategic plan is built in a wiki format, and if you are brave enough to open it up to all - keeping true to the wiki format - you could open source the whole operations...which will lead me to my next post.

Credits

I can't claim the idea of job sharing as original to me, but I don't know many others who suggest that job sharing a presidency on a college or university campus would be a good idea. If they are out there, hopefully, they will chime in. If there are schools out there trying this, by all means, affix a story to this hack and let us know how it's going.

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April 12, 2014 at 12:44am

Aden

We all know that having a college degree can lead you to opportunities that's why many students are obtaining student loan to support their educational cost.Tuition fees are expensive but think about the future. Never hesitate to ask help from student loan.