When a community college president leaves and the college doesn’t have enough time to conduct a full search for a replacement, they turn to an interim president. This is ideally someone who’s experienced in the role from a previous post or who has other senior-level experience, who can provide breathing room while they search for the next long-term leader.
It varies from school to school and situation to situation how this dynamic unfurls, in terms of what the interim president can and cannot do, whether or not they’re being asked to make significant (sometimes unpopular) changes or simply steer the ship capably, and whether this temporary person might become permanent. But when a position will be vacant for six months or a year, it’s too long to ask current staff to take on extra responsibilities — or to set aside those responsibilities until the new permanent leader arrives.
This article is an excerpt from the new issue of the Community College Journal, published by the American Association of Community Colleges.
“There are institutions that learn of the president’s upcoming departure and they decide, ‘We’re going to go with an interim because we aren’t in a place, financially or resource-wise, where we feel we can do the permanent search right away,’” says Melinda Leonardo, director of interim search and an executive search consultant with AGB Search, part of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, which specializes in higher education searches. “Most of the time, those institutions are thinking that the interim can afford them an opportunity to get some things done and set the stage, so that when the permanent president comes on board, they can have some early wins.”
Seamless transitions
Sometimes, when a college finds out the president plans to leave, the leadership and board strategically decide to take on difficult decisions like budgetary right-sizing over the year or so the interim president will be in place, Leonardo says.
“It’s a unique position because this person is coming on board for a short term,” she says. “Everyone on that team understands that the interim is there to help them to get things done, and there’s no underlying agenda.”
In many ways, an interim presidency ends up working like a consultancy, Leonardo says.
“They’re able to come to the table at that institution and say, ‘Listen, I’ve seen this work at this institution. You might want to try this. You have a lot of similarities to XYZ.’ … It’s an outsider’s perspective, a third eye, in terms of the leadership.”
One downside of hiring an interim president, assuming that person doesn’t become permanent, is that two transitions end up taking place — but if handled correctly, those transitions can be seamless, Leonardo says.
“If the stage is well-set, it turns out to be a positive,” she says. “But I say this to candidates: The interim [presidency] is not the place where a candidate can come in and say, ‘I’ve always wanted to be a president. Maybe I can get my feet wet and get some practice.’ The interim role is not a place where an individual learns on the job.”
Not just retirees
Clients sometimes ask Leonardo whether her database mainly comprises retirees — which it is not.
“Most candidates have discovered over a long career that they are really good serving in a change-agent role. There’s a large spectrum of what that might mean. They’re motivated by that opportunity,” she says.
But they’re at a point in their career, life and financial situation where they’re not motivated to make another five- to 10-year commitment, she adds. Still, they want to have a high-impact role.
“This is not for the faint of heart,” she says. “Anyone who would come to us saying out loud that they want to retire, we always dig a little deeper there. … This is not a space where someone can just come in and coast. These interims, they are boots on the ground.”
In certain instances, institutions also are looking for someone willing to make tough decisions, Leonardo says.
“The reality is, there are some situations where the institution says to us, ‘This is what we need to get done, and this is going to be difficult.’ Sometimes there are major cuts that have to take place,” or a tough assessment of a particular department or division, she says. “I’ve had clients we work with who come to me and say, ‘We’ve already made this decision. We need it implemented. And it’s going to be a heavy lift.”
What the college needs
AGB looks for candidates with the temperament not to shy away from those sorts of lifts, ideally someone who has been through them before, Leonardo says.
“We’re looking for that kind of alignment,” she says. “Have they been through a Middle States accreditation visit that had things they were required to work on, and were they successful? These are candidates who have said to us, ‘I’m really interested in doing this work because I’m good at it.’”
In other cases, the candidate is expected to take on the warmer and fuzzier role of running the ship smoothly and building relationships with prospective donors, she adds, but “we’ve never run into a situation where the interim is going to be a warm body in a seat.”
Interim presidents sometimes move into permanent positions as it makes sense, says Leonardo, who probably sees it happen two or three times a year, not necessarily at the presidential level.
“We’re wide open to that, for good reason. We know that if we have done our job that well, and it is a perfect fit, it makes no sense to further disrupt that transition,” she says. And that interim person then negotiates directly with the college or university on what is usually an employment contract, she adds, while AGB provides guidance on the process as needed.
“It’s not unusual, but it doesn’t happen very often,” Leonardo says of interim presidents becoming permanent. “There are cases where the institution will decide to start the permanent search but the board will say, ‘If the interim is interested, we’d like them to apply.’ … It is entirely dependent on what that board wants to do.”
