An American Council of Education report released earlier this week predicts “a major turnover in the leadership of American colleges and universities in the next five to 10 years” due to coming retirements of many college and university leaders, USA Today reports.
“Nearly half of the 2,148 leaders of public and private institutions who responded to the ACE survey were at least 60 years old,” the newspaper reports. “Only 14% of presidents were over 60 when ACE first surveyed presidents in 1986.”
The ACE report also presents the job of a university president in a less than flattering light. The decline in state funding, increased competition for students and dollars, and other factors make the job less appealing than in years past. The USA Today report quotes Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity University in Washington, D.C., who “said increasing demands of the job raise the question of whether the next generation will want to take the place of retiring presidents.”
“Time was when a college presidency seemed like a pretty nice job. The details were not quite so clear, nor the pressures,” [McGuire] said. “I think by illustrating both the range of tasks and the nature of the pressures, I think it raises some interesting issues about how the next generation would even view these jobs.
“On the one hand, they’re very prestigious. They pay well,” McGuire said. “On the other hand, there’s an enormous amount of stress. And that could be off-putting.”
Andy writes! 
We have a new President this year, and the big public in town got a new Provost last year. (It’s not any fun.)
Then again, I thought the average tenure for a college president was something like 4 years? We counted ourself lucky that our last president stayed 15 years.
I’ve been in higher ed PR for 30 years and have seen a lot of presidents come and go. The nature of the job has changed radically. There will always be people with the drive, ego and belief in higher education who will want to be president. The question is, will they be prepared?
Morgan, I too thought the average tenure of a college president was around 4-5 years. But according to that USA Today piece, “presidents reported being in their jobs an average of 8.5 years, the highest recorded average since the survey was first conducted.” Your campus was fortunate indeed to have a president stick around for so long.