How College Presidents Succeed

"Based largely on oral histories, How College Presidents Succeed weaves together the stories of three college presidents, each a member of the same Virginia family, to draw out what makes for good and effective university leadership. For most of the past six decades, one or another of them (sometimes two simultaneously) have dealt with the challenges of leading varied institutions in a growing, politically and demographically evolving state embedded within an equally changing and complex national, economic, and cultural environment for higher education. In particular, each of the three dealt with issues of race and racial reckoning particular to their times and places. Working from more than one hundred hours of oral history interviews, political scientist Michael Nelson uses these conversations to reflect on the concept of leadership in higher education, while providing contextual material from archival sources, news accounts, and documents relating to their presidencies. Includes a foreword by former defense secretary Robert M. Gates and an afterword by former secretary of state James A. Baker III"--