Time to Train Your Interim Leaders - Commentary

Richard Badenhausen, dean of the Honors College at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Marcy Brown Marsden, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Midwestern State University (TX), and Clay Motley, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Florida Gulf Coast University, write:  It is the “age of interims,” as a recent story in The Chronicle put it. With budgetary, political, enrollment, and burnout pressures sparking administrative churn, colleges and universities have increasingly had to rely on temporary appointments to fill the leadership gap.

All too often, however, institutions drop the ball in setting up interim administrators to flourish in key senior positions. Misperceptions surround these short-term appointments, which often emerge suddenly and come with intense challenges. Interim leaders, The Chronicle reported, “face a daunting task. They are often asked to tackle longstanding problems without the full authority, mandate, or resources of someone in a permanent position, all within an abbreviated time frame.”