Is being the president of a top university in America the most challenging job? The search for new university presidents is on. The average tenure of a university president in 2022 was six years, indicating that hundreds of jobs change hands each year. Yet the number of vacancies at America’s most prestigious schools is striking. Yale’s president will also step down this summer after 11 years in the job; so will the chancellors of the publicly funded University of California, Los Angeles, and Berkeley. That leaves six of the top universities in the world searching for a new president. These institutions are responsible for shepherding some of the world’s biggest brains (Nobel prizewinners) and also some of its most impressionable (the coddled offspring of America’s elite). That’s to say nothing of their hospitals, thousands of administrative staff and $160bn of endowments. The responsibility falls on the board of trustees at private universities. Many look similar to those of America’s corporate giants, packed with financial luminaries. A broader committee, including faculty and students, is sometimes tasked with aiding the search. Specialist headhunters are often involved. Source from www.economist.com
