Blogs

The Rise of Narrative-Driven Leadership in Higher Education Presidents are often trained to believe that sound decisions, grounded in evidence and made in good faith, will ultimately speak for themselves. Unfortunately, that assumption rarely holds today. In this environment, presidential leanings, hypotheses, and observations are immediately distributed, interpreted, and critiqued.

Early in a presidency, and especially when conditions are stable, the confidence a board expresses toward a president can feel relational. Alignment feels durable. Board affirmation is often experienced as personal regard rather than institutional support. Those perceptions may be accurate. Even so, they reflect only part of the institutional

In higher education, “fit drift” names a structural asymmetry—a misalignment that evolves as expectations of the presidency increase and governance readiness, decision-making authority, and institutional support fail to proportionally adjust. Fit drift is not a diminishment of presidential commitment or competency, but it does limit presidential effectiveness. What Is Fit

Presidential Fit in Higher Education: More Than Just a Feeling Presidential “fit” is often treated as a matter of chemistry—shared values, interpersonal ease, cultural alignment. These elements matter. But, in practice, presidential fit is as much a structural condition as it is a feeling or relational connection. In today’s higher

A Blog Series on Presidential Fit, Fit Drift, and Governance Under Strain By Lori E. Varlotta, PhD The Structural Nature of Presidential Strain University presidencies rarely become untenable in a single moment. More often, strain accumulates over time, conditions intensify, and governance structures that once supported leadership no longer remain

An analysis of the major higher education challenges in 2025—demographics, collaboration, regulation, democracy, and ROI—with guidance for university presidents and governing boards. If 2025 taught us anything, it is that higher education is not contending with a passing squall. It is navigating a new climate—one shaped by demographic contraction, rising

When higher education leaders talk about the “moment,” we should do so in ways that do not reinforce a common but inaccurate narrative that suggests the enrollment cliff, equity issues, and public pressures arrived suddenly or will recede quickly. They did not. The demographic contraction has been building for more

How Universities Achieve Financial Sustainability Through Collaboration Across higher education, leaders are rethinking how to strengthen mission-driven, tuition-dependent institutions in the face of demographic decline, cost escalation, and market volatility. The old playbook—incremental tuition hikes and deeper discounts—no longer delivers stability. Financial sustainability now depends on innovation, collaboration, and scale.

Presidential turnover at colleges and universities is high. Between 2022 and 2024, more than one in five presidents and senior executives left their roles. At many of those institutions, the departure came sooner than expected and without a transition plan in place. Boards cannot always prevent a president from stepping

The Presidential Imperative AI is no longer relegated to tech labs, computer science courses, or futuristic think tanks. At many universities, it is already reshaping how students learn, how faculty teach, and how institutions operate. Professors, no doubt, are on the front lines of this teaching-and-learning transformation—the focus of this

A Growing Challenge in Higher Education Leadership Across higher education, the role of the university president has always been a challenging one. But in recent years, it has become what some have called a “position impossible.” The data bear this out. The average presidential tenure has dropped from 8.5 years