Amid ongoing changes in the leadership of historically Black colleges and universities, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Minority Serving Institutions (CMSI) has published a new toolkit designed to help presidents of these institutions strengthen and hone their leadership skills.
This week, CMSI released the report titled, “Effective Leadership: A Toolkit for the 21st-Century Historically Black College and University President.” In it, the authors address some of the challenges that HBCU presidents often face and provide suggestions on what types of skills scholars should be honing to eventually move into these top-level positions.
“There are lots of people who want to be presidents of HBCUs but don’t know how,” said Dr. Marybeth Gasman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and director of CMSI. “We wanted to provide something that was succinct and research based and has tips in it.”
The release of the toolkit comes days after four retired HBCU presidents announced that they were forming an executive-search firm for Black college leaders. Connected to the Thurgood Marshall Fund, the former college presidents hope to stave off the high degree of presidential turnover at these institutions.
Gasman, who sent the toolkit to several HBCU presidents before releasing it, said that the new search firm headed by Drs. John Garland, Sidney Ribeau, Wayne Watson and Dorothy Yancy was a step in the right direction.
“I think it’s a really great idea,” said Gasman. “I like the idea of HBCUs coming together and banding together for this kind of initiative,” she said, adding that the former presidents should also reach out to sitting presidents for guidance and advice as they build the search firm.
Still, much more has to be done to cultivate a leadership pipeline.
