Resources
Higher education is changing rapidly, and leaders need spaces to learn from new ideas and one another.
This list includes resources we've found helpful in thinking about resilient leadership. It's not meant to be exhaustive—just a place to start. If there's something we should add, we'd love your recommendation.
This TIAA Institute brief, drawn from interviews with 15 college and university presidents, explores how leaders are thinking about their institutions' missions and societal impact amid financial pressure, demographic shifts, and eroding public trust. The presidents interviewed speak candidly about what it takes to hold onto mission and purpose when the ground keeps shifting, offering a grounded look at how resilient leadership shows up in real institutional decisions.
This Forvis Mazars webinar features a former university president sharing lessons drawn from conversations with current and former presidents about leading institutions through sustained turbulence. It's a practical, candid discussion of the leadership choices, personal resilience, and decision-making realities that come with the presidency when resources, morale, and time are all in short supply.
Lisa Fiore and Catherine Koverola examine the tensions between faculty and administrators that have become common across higher education, and that can strain both institutions and the people within them. Drawing on intercultural theory and their own experience navigating these divides, the authors offer practical tools, including case studies and sample scripts, for building the kind of trust that turns conflict into productive relationship.
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, Gerald B. Kauvar, and E. Grady Bogue examine why some university presidencies fail, drawing on firsthand accounts from derailed presidents and sixteen case studies across four sectors of higher education. It's a candid look at the patterns behind leadership challenges, useful for search committees, sitting presidents, and anyone thinking about what it takes to sustain a presidency over the long term.