Blog Posts

September 21, 2021 - Trustees are no longer passive participants outside of mainstream decision-making and policy formulation. The bottom line is simple: How well boards function will make a big difference in the fortunes of the organizations they guide. The board’s role is strategic, not …

September 17, 2021 - One need only scan recent headlines of the higher education and popular press to wonder whether public governing boards, and the processes that appoint them, need serious improvement. Some will say that schisms in board rooms reflect our deeply divided …

September 16, 2021 - …

September 14, 2021 - The critical need to effectively prepare higher education leaders for the presidency has been surfacing for quite some time. The 2017 American College President Study, conducted by the American Council on Education (ACE), found that 54 percent of presidents or …

September 09, 2021 - The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a shift in what students think of higher education. This is the first in a series of three posts from Six Red Marbles looking ahead to these possibly seismic shifts and how to prepare your …

Why do board members devote so much time and attention to their governance work? For many of us in higher education, preparing students for their futures is at the top of our list. Because higher education is one of the …

September 02, 2021 - In the age of low interest rates and tightening public spending, universities were already turning to the bond market for financing. But, like so many other trends, this one was vastly accelerated by the pandemic, which put a further squeeze …

August 10, 2021 - It’s Summer 2021 and we are heading into a new academic year with many emotions: excitement, trepidation, confidence, hope. I expect the 2021/2022 academic year to bring all these to a heightened level.  As a mother of a graduate student, …

August 09, 2021 - This blog post is part of the Board Responsibilities for Intercollegiate Athletics Toolkit, which includes a host of resources that help boards define roles and responsibilities, contend with emerging issues, and manage risk. To say that intercollegiate athletics in American higher education …

We have recently been bombarded with stories about college and university boards being pressured by external groups. Public officials, policymakers, donors, alumni, and others are, in unprecedented ways, seeking to influence board and institutional decisions about hiring, tenure, and curriculum—matters …