Crutcher says a mentor planted the seed for his ultimate career goal, back in 1996. Dr. Bryce Jordan, a former president of The Pennsylvania State University, “coached me through my first few interviews,” Crutcher explains.
The biggest question about the future of higher education leadership in Massachusetts is when will an administrator of color take the reins of an elite private university like Harvard University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or even a Tufts University or Boston University?
Doherty of the AICUM suggests that time may not be too far off. He says Dr. Shirley Jackson, the African-American president of Rensselaer Institute of Technology, was a candidate for MIT’s top post and the subject of public speculation about Harvard’s during each institution’s last search.
Both private universities hired a woman for the first time. Harvard was under pressure to break the gender barrier because of widely publicized controversial statements that former president Lawrence Summers had made.
Isaacson, the search firm executive, suggests two trends may finally catapult a minority into the top job at an elite university in Massachusetts. For one, he has observed an increasing number of “prominent scholars” of color who are in their 30s and 40s. At the same time, he has detected an increased institutional emphasis on the “scholarly productivity” of prospective presidents.
“That’s the ticket to get the selectives to play,” Isaacson says. “Presidents get recruited in their 50s. We are seeing a cadre from whom we’ll see some presidents.”
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