Career Patterns of Private Four-Year College and University Presidents in the United States

Abstract

The American college presidency began with election of Henry Dunster as chief officer at Harvard College in 1640 |14~. In intervening years much ha been written about college and university presidents as well as chief executive officers in business and industry. This study focused on patterns of private, four-year college and university presidents in United States. Literature Review The writings of Sorokin |17~, Taussig and Joslyn |19~, Warner and Abegglen |21~ Form and Miller |8~, and Spilerman |18~ form theoretical underpinnings of current study. Sorokin |17~, sociologist in 1920s, examined mobility among various classes of people. Taussig and Joslyn |19~ studied social origins and social stratification of American business leaders. They were intrigued with economic inequalities and how they affected abilit of various social classes to obtain certain types of occupations. Warner and Abegglen |21~ studied business elite to learn about mobility. They developed concept of occupational defined as the ordered process by which individuals succeed each other in occupations. Th study of succession, therefore, consists of examining circulation and movement of personnel through positions, and of determining regularities and uniformities which have to do with entering, holding, and leaving given status. |21, p. 4~. Form and Miller |8~, whose emphasis was on vertical mobility, grouped occupations according to major category of last prior to current position. Spilerman |18~ used career to investigate sequence of jobs that similar groups of individuals have. His definition of job was work history that is common to portion of labor force |18, p. 551~. A line is a collection of jobs in which there is high probability of movement from one position to another on list |18, p. 560~. The idea was that normative trajectories were established by sequentially ordering entry positions that culminate in single, fixed top-of-the-ladder position. Cohen and March identified hierarchical pattern of promotion through academic administration toward college or university presidency |5~. The typical American college president entered his/her academic as teacher, student, or minister, becoming member of college or university faculty. A some point faculty member assumed administrative duties as department chair institute director or dean; he or she was promoted to academic vice-president, and then to president. Other writers, who had studied various classifications o college and university presidents, confirmed notion of promotion through academic administration toward presidency |1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, 20, 22~. In nationwide survey of presidents, provosts, deans, and department chairs at four-year institutions, Moore et al. |12~ and Salimbene |16~ broadened Cohe and March |5~ analysis of an administrative pattern of college presidents. They identified fifteen variations (paths) of presidential ladder, demonstrating that simplicity of single pattern was inaccurate unless variations of model were included. Salimbene found that only 5 of 156 presidents surveyed (3.2 percent) had perfect match to administrative pattern as reported by Cohen and March. The majority of presidents had skipped two or three rungs on ladder. Moore et al. concluded that the normative presidential trajectory |Cohen and March 1974~ is accurate only to extent that permutations and variations among its elements are incorporated. . . . It is most accurate in describing principa entry portal to college presidency -- faculty experience -- and in identifying four other positions that commonly appear within |12, p. …