What does it take to be a leader of a large university? That is the question my colleague Jay Schalin ponders in today’s Pope Center article. Apparently, Jay says, UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor Holden Thorp doesn’t make the grade:
…UNC-Chapel Hill’s scandal highlights the need for a new type of university administrator, one with street smarts who seeks to reform higher education rather than the sheltered academics with grand schemes for expansion and politicization that predominate in academia today. Higher education has had a long run of rapid growth dating back to World War II, and it has undergone drastic changes due to fads and political pressure along the way. The current era calls for leaders atop our universities who are fully aware of the negative affects of that growth and change before they take the job, not those who seem out of sorts when the inevitable problems arise.
