June 4, 1998 | Read Time: 1 minute
The increased attention that college presidents must pay to fund raising has dangerous implications for higher education — and for society, warns The New Republic in a June 1 cover story entitled “The Incredible Shrinking College President.”
“As universities have become more like other businesses,” writes David Greenberg, an American-history scholar at Columbia University, “their presidencies have attracted administrators and fund raisers more than scholars and visionaries.”
The average college president now must devote 40 to 60 per cent of his or her schedule to raising money, Mr. Greenberg notes. “Presidents flit from city to city, pressing the flesh for cash,” he writes.
Not only does the time involved in fund raising sap them of their ability to set an intellectual agenda for their campuses, Mr. Greenberg argues, but it has left them little energy to speak out on key social and political issues in the way that college presidents once did on issues like nuclear weapons.
What’s more, he says, the demands of fund raising have made many presidents unwilling to speak their minds about social issues, curricular changes, or much else out of fear of alienating donors. That strikes Mr. Greenberg as a backward approach, and one that has hurt the image of higher education. “Presidents would do well to think about working toward restoring the reputation of higher education first,” he says, “in the hope that increased giving will follow.”
