Tim Tai, Senior Photographer

University President Peter Salovey’s plans to step down this summer follow shifts in leadership at several universities across the country, including half of the Ivy League.

Given the rate of presidential turnover at Yale’s peer institutions, higher education experts — and Salovey himself — told the News that this turnover may be related to the increasingly complex issues university presidents have faced in recent years, including the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“When you look at higher education, presidents are stepping down after five or six years … the political climate is very tough [and so are] the travel requirements, the demands on your schedule and the demands on family,” Salovey told the News. “The time to ask the board to choose a successor is when things are going really well because that means you can bring in a successor who can continue the momentum we have, rather than spend years righting the ship, fixing things and, as a result, lose momentum.”

Over the past year, four Ivy League universities have appointed new presidents. Stanford University, too, is currently undergoing a presidential search following Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s resignation amid growing concerns about the integrity of his research.

In January, Columbia University named Nimat “Minouche” Shafik its successor to former president Lee C. Bollinger, who announced in April 2022 that he would be stepping down from the role after 21 years and returning to the faculty. Following a six-month search process for president Philip J. Hanlon’s successor, Dartmouth College announced that Sian Leiah Beilock would be its 19th president in July 2022. In December 2022, Claudine Gay was named Harvard University’s 29th president after Lawrence Bacow stepped down after five years in the role.  

Sahfik, Beilock and Gay all began their terms on July 1. 

In addition to turnover this summer, Elizabeth “Liz” Magill ’88 began her term as president of the University of Pennsylvania last summer, following Amy Gutman’s resignation after being confirmed by the Senate as the U.S. ambassador to Germany.

When Salovey concludes his time as president, he will have served 11 years in the role. The average tenure of Yale’s previous presidents is 13.95 years, or 15.25 years when excluding the University’s two interim presidents, who each served one year in office.   

Increasing “complexities of the role”

Danielle Melidona, senior analyst in the Education Futures Lab at the American Council on Education, wrote in an email to the News that a the role of a university president is becoming increasingly complex as higher education institutions evolve.

She added that no candidate who lands at the helm of a large university possesses all the necessary skills and knowledge that such a position demands.

“There is a significant level of business development, people management, auxiliary operations, fundraising, and more all while centering students, their experiences, and their outcomes,” Melidona wrote. “College presidents are running large enterprises … a willingness to learn, one who seeks collaboration, and a leader who can draw upon the expertise of others are important in managing the complexities of the role.”

In an interview with the News, Salovey said that being University president “gets hard.”

He added that in the current climate of higher education and the growing demands of the role, he does not foresee any more 20-year presidential tenures, like that of his predecessor Richard C. Levin GRD ’74. 

“You’re working seven days a week, you’re on the road a third to a half of your time,” he said. “You’re either hosting an event or out at an event nearly every night of the week.”

Jay Lemons, president and senior consultant at Academic Search and former president of Susquehanna University, wrote in an email to the News that the tenure of college presidents has declined in the past 15 years for reasons including the increased pressures arising from financial constraints and “demographic headwinds.”

The COVID-19 pandemic and the polarization that appears to “grip” the American public are additional factors contributing to the role’s difficulty, he wrote.

Lemons added that the number of stakeholders engaged in running an institution are “vast” and that their interests might not always align.

“The work of university presidents is extraordinarily complex,” Lemons wrote. “Yet, from our largest and best-known institutions to our lesser-known and smaller institutions, the work of the president is about focusing on the mission of the institution.”

Rising rates of presidential turnover 

In her email to the News, Melidona also wrote that in its 2023 edition of “The American College President” report, the American Council on Education found that over half of college and university presidents planned to step down in the next five years, with 25 percent indicating that they intend leave in the next year or two and 30 percent in the next three to five years. 

She also wrote that in this year’s survey, more presidents were new to their positions than in previous years, indicating that institutions may be experiencing more frequent transfers of power. The report shows that while the average tenure of respondents in 2006 was 8.5 years, it has decreased to 5.9 years in 2022.

She added that pressures on university presidents have been increasing and that high presidential turnover in recent years could mean “significant disruptions to the forward progress” of institutions.

“Declining enrollment [and the] influx of external politics on public institutions is certainly challenging,” Melidona wrote. “This is a 24/7 job that requires presidents to be ‘on’ all the time and have skills in many different areas — they have to be strategists, fundraisers, relationship builders, work with faculty, know what students want and stay on top of changing expectations from parents, students, and the public.”

Lemons wrote that he believes that the wave of presidential turnover will not have any significant impact on the Ivy League.

According to Lemons, the average tenure of college and university presidents has dropped by six years nationally. He noted that Bollinger’s 21-year run at Columbia and Salovey’s 11-year tenure at Yale have already exceeded the average tenure of college presidents.

“The strength of the Ivies is such that I don’t think it will have any impact on these venerable places or their peers,” he wrote.

Executive Director of Yale’s Education Studies Program Mira Debs GRD ’13 told the News that recently elevated rates of presidential turnover and the current climate of social change have challenged presidents to make “tough calls,” despite being newly elected.

She said that among the duties of the president are responding to current events, maintaining relationships with alumni and with the surrounding community, fundraising, as well as setting the leadership agenda for the university.

“The president wears a lot of hats,” Debs said. “A lot of that work is based in relationships, and relationships take time to develop, which might be a reason why, in a number of cases, an Ivy league university will choose someone who is an insider and who already understands how the institution works.”

Yale’s longest-serving president is the Rev. Jeremiah Day, who served in the role for 29 years from 1817 to 1846.

Correction, Feb. 12: This article has been updated to fix a transcription error in one paragraph containing information attributed to Peter Salovey — he said that he does not foresee any more 20-year presidential tenures, while a previous version of this piece omitted the word “not.”