Turning 9 sure means a lot to us. Back in 2016 when we launched Peterson Rudgers Group, we imagined working with higher ed senior leadership teams in pursuit of important institutional goals. We hoped to bring our decades (and decades!)-long expertise to bear on the sector’s deep challenges and greatest opportunities. We wanted this chapter of our careers to be about significant positive impact.
Above all, we focused on one guiding principle: Choose work that brings us joy.
Nine years in and counting, we are deeply grateful for the clients who have joined us on this journey and brought us plenty of joy along the way: the presidents and chancellors; their boards and leadership teams; offices of the provost; divisions of communications and marketing, student life, external affairs and advancement; schools and colleges across disciplines.
Julie, Steve and I could not fulfill our mission without the talented team with whom we have the privilege of working each day. Diane Brown, Debbie Serwach, Charlotte Fietz, and Lisa Connolly make the trains run on time behind the scenes, and we’d be lost without them. Add to that our PRG senior advisors and associates — talented professionals from senior leadership roles across higher education — who contribute so mightily to PRG’s special sauce.
To mark our 9th anniversary, I tapped the PRG hive mind to answer some questions we think about often in our work advising higher ed leadership teams.
What qualities and characteristics do higher ed teams need to function most effectively in today’s volatile environment?
“The ability to think about the needs of their entire community, including both internal and external stakeholders. It is so easy to be swayed by the loudest voice.” – Julie Peterson
“Understanding the difference between functional leadership and institutional leadership is central for higher education. When team members behave as institutional leaders rather than a set of folk responsible for a functional area — everything changes.” – Royster Harper
“The ability to stay calm and principled, and to articulate — and adhere to — clear guidance about the mission and role of higher education.” – Lisa Lapin
“Empathy, and cultural and emotional intelligence. Seeing the world not only through their own lens but through the experience of others.” – Sonya Malunda
“I think leadership teams would do well to choose love over fear, both in managing teams and in making decisions.” – Angela Paik
What is one guiding principle every college president and board member should live by?
“You are the steward of long-term trust. Trust is easily broken, and not easily restored.” – Lisa Rudgers
“Remember why you love this job. Higher education advances opportunities for your students and develops knowledge that improves the human condition. Keep your eye on the central purpose.” – Julie Peterson
“Fidelity to mission, and the courage and wisdom to know that to endure, an institution must evolve.” – Angela Paik
“Higher education is a team sport. Your job is to support and empower that team, at every level.” – Steve Kloehn
“Help your community make meaning — to frame and interpret what’s happening in the world and what it means to be a scholar and a student in these times. Your community looks to you to set the tone, and it’s a job only you can do.” – Laurie Fenlason
“Listen to your board — really listen — and communicate with them regularly. Individual relationships and cultivation of those relationships are critical. As part of this, agree to respectfully disagree on occasion (but know there will be instances when you must disagree).” – Mary Sue Coleman
What is one thing colleges should do to begin restoring public trust?
“Two things to stop doing: Stop bragging about the size of your endowment and stop bragging about the number of students who weren’t accepted as a measure of institutional quality. One thing to focus on doing: Have students, faculty and staff engage in the community in an impactful, not a charitable, way.“ – Sonya Malunda
“Demonstrate value every single day. What does the public get from higher education? How do students benefit? How does society benefit?“ – Lisa Lapin
“Let’s stop saying ‘we need to reclaim the higher ed narrative’ and instead focus on what we need to do that will re-balance the higher ed narrative in the minds of the public.” – Lisa Rudgers
“Humility and confidence are not opposites — they are two complementary aspects of the approach institutions and leaders need to take to the world beyond our campus gates.” – Steve Kloehn
“Take a critical look at how you look to the community you call home. Being a good partner locally is the first step to earning trust. The essential ingredients are truth and transparency, even when it is hard. If you’re not perceived well locally it’s a lot harder to convince the wider community and beyond to support and trust the institution.” – Cynthia Wilbanks
What is one big opportunity colleges have in the years ahead?
“Partnerships! Higher ed is generally not known for being a really great partner. Campus culture and operational barriers can make it hard to work effectively with other entities. But if an institution can forge strong relationships with industry, government, non-profits and other colleges, it will create new opportunities for distinctive programs that enhance impact and value.” – Julie Peterson
“We have both the challenge and the opportunity to make higher ed meaningful and relevant in a distracted, impatient society that wants easy rewards and fast satisfaction. (Did you see Davie Brooks’ column on the ‘junkification’ of America? Higher ed must overcome it.)“ – Lisa Lapin
“Students today don’t take the value of college at face value — they can’t afford to. The next generation of students need to see and feel the specific, tangible, transformational impact of higher education. This requires universities to tell a new story: not resting on the laurels of tradition and nostalgia, but instead committed to preparing intersectional students to succeed in a complex world. We live in a world where content is ubiquitous, news travels instantly, and authenticity rises to the top. The colleges that figure out how to talk with their student body (and not at them) stand to gain: a co-authored narrative between school and student that reflects the truth of what college means today.” – Josh Buoy
“As someone who regularly researches universities’ impact when I’m working to launch or or support college fundraising campaigns, I’m constantly saying “Wow! How cool! Who knew?!” about various research, programs and initiatives. I feel like I have a view into an almost secret world that shouldn’t be secret. Can higher education create awareness campaign using the kinds of tools other sectors like healthcare use — advertising, outdoor, digital/social — to effectively communicate about the human impact coming directly from our campuses?” – Colleen Newquist
“In today’s ‘post-truth’ society, a flood of misinformation and disinformation dangerously undermines facts and a shared sense of common reality. Science itself is under attack. Universities have a critical role to play in centering fact-based inquiry in public life. They must become vocal advocates for science, sharing stories that show how research brings us evidence and answers that make our world a better place.” – Toni Shears
“Build on success, acknowledge shortcomings, challenge old ways of thinking and anticipate more disruption without hysteria. Our world is changing; higher education must lead through as well as adapt to change. We have an opportunity — and an imperative — to embrace innovation.” – Cynthia Wilbanks
A few years ago I read an article by historian and author James Tobin. In it, he described a university as “the purpose made permanent.” There is a great deal of disruption and change across higher ed as we mark this 9th anniversary. Perhaps the most essential role we all play is to stay laser focused on higher education’s “why,” its purpose — or purposes — made permanent: knowledge, understanding, social mobility, opportunity, service, societal good. When we keep our eyes on the mission, our decision-making and direction-setting stay in focus, too.