By Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier:
Reflecting on the end of his tenure as the head of the University of Texas system in 2018, then-Chancellor William McRaven made headlines by declaring that leading a university or a health institution was “the toughest job in the nation.”
These weren’t the words of some doughy academic who’d spent a career sheltered within ivy-covered walls. McRaven was a onetime Navy SEAL, a retired admiral and the former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. He knew something about tough jobs.
Today, the conventional wisdom seems to be that the job of a university president is so tough that nobody in their right mind would want it—a sentiment recently showcased in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
It’s not hard to understand this line of thought. Universities and their leaders are under attack, and a July Gallup poll showed that public confidence in higher education is in steep decline. Many in academia are questioning how to move forward, and now view a university’s top job as a political hot seat that is no longer worth the stress.
These truly are challenging times for higher education. During my tenure at Vanderbilt, this has included not only crises like Covid-19 and the recent uproar over higher education, but also important macro-developments such as the rise of artificial intelligence and the decoupling from China, both of which have profound impact for colleges and universities. But as far as I’m concerned, leading a university is still the best job in the world.
First, there is the immense impact one can have by leading an institution whose noble purpose is transformative education and pathbreaking research. You get to work with students who are bright, engaged, hardworking, full of ideas and deeply concerned about the future. You also get to support their indefatigable professors, who instill vital knowledge, encourage hard questions and help students develop the skills to not only voice their own ideas and opinions, but to also engage productively with people they disagree with.
Read the rest of the article in Forbes.