Publications and Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-26-2017
Abstract
Despite the fact that the leadership of colleges and universities in this country is in dire need of fresh ideas, a report released last week by the American Council on Education (ACE) shows that the people in these positions continue to be largely white, male – and getting older. And while women represent the majority of undergraduate and graduate students in this country and that the number of minorities attending colleges and universities keeps growing and will continue to grow in the years to come, by 2016 less than a third of college presidents were women and less than a fifth were members of any ethnic minority.
The ACE report found that the average president was 61.7 years old, up from 60.7 years old in 2011 and 59.9 years old in 2006. Also, there is an increasing proportion of leaders (nearly a fourth) who had already led other colleges and universities. This seems to indicate that the people in charge of selecting college presidents care more about experience than new ideas.
Comments
This work was originally published in The Edwardsville Intelligencer.