Leaders in the Labyrinth: College Presidents and the Battleground of Creeds and Convictions »

STEPHEN J. NELSON is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at Bridgewater State College (MA) and is a Senior Scholar in the Leadership Alliance at Brown University. He holds a Ph.D. in Professional Higher Education Administration from the University of Connecticut, and is the author of Leaders in the Crucible: The Moral Voice of College Presidents (2000). He received a Kellogg Foundation grant to conduct the further research about college and university presidents that led to this book. Dr. Nelson holds a B.A. degree in history from Gettysburg College, an MS in Religious Studies from the Harford Seminary, and a Masters of Divinity from Andover Newton Theological School.

This book sheds light on how presidents conduct the influence and power of their office, especially in the use of their pulpits, how they navigate issues of political correctness, and how they hold the center of the university together, in contentious times and against competing ideological forces.

"Quiet grace and dignity, characteristics closely associated with a college presidency, go only so far during stormy union negotiations, frustrating budget hearings, and long, contentious board meetings about how to market the college to increasingly skeptical and technology-controlled consumers. Nelson finds that successful presidents, or potential presidents have their share of traditional characteristics but also possess the ability to hold the core of the university together whether in intellectual or financial boom times or bust, and have the insight to know when the battle is for the soul of the university and when it is merely a minor skirmish. Nelson's narratives from the front line are always instructional and often riveting, and the result is not only a guide for prudent educational leadership but also a tool search committees can use to find that quiet grace and dignity with the necessary edge."

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Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction     xiii
Presidential Leadership: Navigating Climate and Challenges
The Hunt for Dollars: Appealing to Constituents and Critics     7
Presidential Engagements and Entanglements: The University Tackles the Wider World     23
Inheriting the Wind: Institutional Stories and the Shoulders of Predecessors     43
The Contest for the Middle: Can the Center Hold?
The Dilemmas of Diversity     67
Political Rightness and Ideology: The Battleground in and around the Academy's Walls     87
The Courage to Hold the Center: Balancing Convictions and Passionate Intensity     115
Presidential Imprints: Securing the Academic Core from Threats Within and Without     129
Life in the Bully Pulpit: Choices and Dilemmas     145
The Present and the Future: Presidential Prospects
The Presidential Post: Inside the Job     169
The Future Presidency: Guardian of the Soul of the University     183
A Coda: Creeds and Character     209
Bibliography     221
Index     225