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Special
sessions aimed at campus leadership teams were offered during this year's
Presidents Institute, in keeping with the meeting's theme, "Presidents,
Boards, and the New Millenium." The sessions, which focused on the relationship
between presidents and boards, were developed to appeal particularly
to presidents and board chairs. Trustee leaders for the first time joined
the more than 260 presidents of private colleges and universities who
attended the conference.
"Strong board chairs will enhance the life of
the president," said plenary speaker Robert Allen Skotheim, president
of the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens (formerly
president of Whitman College) during his opening remarks. "The board
chair relationship is emblematic of the president's relation with the
institution as a whole," he said, adding that "the president needs to
be willing to be educated by the institution, at the same time as the
president is trying to educate the institution."
In preparing his speech, Skotheim surveyed ten
trustee chairs with whom he worked about their thoughts as to what is
necessary for a good relationship between the board chair and the president.
Among the responses:
- "A
good relationship...is determined by their common or mutual understanding
of each other's respective roles, authority, and sources of power
within the organization."
- "It
is usually desirable to pair a new president with a new board chair
who ideally would have chaired the search for the president.... The
rationale for this is the desirability of creating a new relationship
setting mutual expectations."
- "It
is enormously useful if [they] actually like each other. The alternative
is rarely successful."
- "Presidents
should be able to use the chair for counsel...[and] communication
between the two should be regular and frequent..... The chair also
needs to anticipate problems for the benefit of the president. Board
dissatisfactions should not come as surprises to the president."
- "Board
chairs should find opportunities to get to know all of the members
of the board personally and understand the environment from which
they come and their motivations for board service. Only in this way
can the best balance between talent and interest be maintained."
- "Presidents
and board chairs should strive to complement one another, not compete
or present opposing views. It is up to one of them-better, both of
them-to recognize problems that each can make for the other and do
something about them."
One
trustee provided Skotheim with a list of one-liners to sum up the relationship
between presidents and board chairs, among them: "No surprises! Full
and reciprocal confidence. Honesty. Recognition of the need for open
and frequent dialogue. Deal with issues sooner, not later; don't let
a difference fester. Acknowledge errors, oversights, and unintended
slights. Give the other 'fellow' the benefit of the doubt. Don't carry
a grudge—air it and drop it. Share a vision for the future. Sense
of humor. The wisdom to let the other party do his/her job."
One just-retired chairman of the board concluded
his reflections with a venerable jibe: "The responsibilities of the
constituents of academic institutions are well and properly ordered.
It is the responsibility of the faculty to think great thoughts and
of the president to make speeches. The function of the board of trustees
is to keep the faculty from making speeches and the president from thinking."
Skotheim concluded that the values held by the
president and board members and their commitment to the institution
drive the relationship. "Trust, respect, confidence, and shared communication
can be built when there is recognition of the value commitment of board
members and chairs."
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Presidential
Leadership and the
Temptation to be Relevant
Richard
J. Wood, President, United Board for Christian Higher Education
in Asia
(formerly president of Earlham College and dean of Yale Divinity
School)
Having
to satisfy multiple constituencies in these times of rapid change
on campuses puts greater pressure than ever on college and university
presidents. Presidents Institute plenary speaker Richard Wood
said that developing a strong board of trustees-and a good relationship
with the board chair-can help a good president both to be better
and to weather some of the inevitable storms.
Wood said a good relationship between
the president and board chair "is the key element to effective
governance," and that a strong board with good information "will
have a shared understanding of the culture of the institution
it governs, its folkways, its unwritten expectations, its aspirations."
In addition, a strong board:
- will not be all
quarterbacks—members will have, and understand, their roles
and the roles of others,
- will have the information
it needs to govern, and
- deals well with
ambiguities, and avoids dictating simple solutions to complex
problems.
A
strong board "can also help the president be a risk-taker and
to push against institutional inertia," Wood said, adding that
the ability to "take risks without judgment provides deep freedom."
However, presidents should note that "real
leadership that is satisfying deep-down spiritually, involves
self denial and leading from vulnerability," Wood cautioned. Without
that, "you may succeed in worldly terms but you will fail internally
because invulnerability cuts you off from yourself.... Leading
from vulnerability frees you from the temptation to retaliate."
Wood outlined four areas where close cooperation
between the president and board chair is essential:
1) Recruitment of new trustees—"Both
president and board chair help identify and recruit suitable new
trustees."
2) Orientation of new trustees—"Both
help with their orientation and evaluation of their performance,
as well as that of the board as a whole."
3) Discipline of the board—"The
board chair must deal gently, but firmly, with problems such as
trustees failing to live up to their responsibilities."
4) Social fabric of the board—"A
strong chair actively attends to the politics of the board, helping
it become a community, ensuring that relevant views get heard
and that a few members do not dominate, and that board members
get a chance to become friends, not just colleagues who meet three
or four times a year."
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Independent
The Council of Independent Colleges
One Dupont Circle NW, Suite 320 • Washington, DC 20036
tel: (202) 466-7230 • Fax: (202) 466-7238 • e-mail: cic@cic.nche.edu
• www.cic.edu
Last updated: May 30, 2001
Copyright © 2001 The Council of Independent Colleges
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