After 13 years as president of Spelman College, Beverly Tatum retired in 2015 amid widespread praise from constituents who credited her for leaving Spelman much stronger than she had found it (Watson, 2014; McAllister‐Grande, 2015). One of her contemporaries, Lou Anna Simon, served almost 15 years1 as president of Michigan State University but resigned in much less happy circumstances, pushed out in 2018 in the wake of a devastating scandal around a serial sexual abuser. Simon and Tatum were both talented, high achievers, but the stark differences in their presidential denouements are emblematic tales containing vital lessons for contemporary academic leaders.
Tatum was new to Spelman, but came with a record as a distinguished scholar and a successful academic leader at one of America's oldest colleges for women, Mount Holyoke, where she had served as department chair, dean of the college, vice president for student affairs, and acting president. Spelman, when Tatum arrived, had a long history as an elite women's college in the world of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) but was facing a challenging new environment with increased competition for talented students and faculty from elite institutions with massive endowments, as well as growing infrastructure needs, a revolving door in the provost's office, and low faculty morale (McAllister‐Grande, 2015). Tatum chose to focus on the opportunities the situation presented, describing Spelman as a jewel to be polished and a place that could realistically aim for “nothing less than the best” (McAllister‐Grande, 2015).
Tatum quickly engaged her constituents in an ambitious array of initiatives: a more collaborative and metric‐driven culture, a new 21st century curriculum, a record‐breaking capital campaign, and stronger infrastructure in key areas like advancement, enrollment management, and technology. She infused new life into an inherited strategic plan by translating its 43 pages into a compelling vision under the acronym Spelman ALIVE (Academic excellence, Leadership development, Improving our environment, Visibility of achievements, and Exemplary customer service). She created myriad opportunities to engage and excite others about it. In 2013, Tatum became the first president of an HBCU to win the prestigious Academic Leadership Award from the Carnegie Corporation. By the time she retired in 2015, Tatum had “gained the respect of her colleagues, her students, and those outside of the world of higher education” (Commodore & Gasman, 2014).
Like Tatum, Lou Anna Simon had years of notable success at her institution. She was a Michigan State alumna whose career at the university spanned more than four decades and was marked by a steady rise to the top administrative positions of provost, interim president, and then president. In 2008, three years after she became president, Simon won many fans by declining a pay raise in a time of fiscal challenges (Haag & Tracy, 2018). Simon retained broad support until shortly before she was swept away by a wave a criticism over her handling of the scandal around Larry Nassar, a physician who had worked for the university for some 20 years as a faculty member and team doctor.
The first accusations against Nassar dated to 1997, but it was not until 2014 that Simon was informed that a Michigan State University physician had been the target of a Title IX investigation (Thomason, 2018). The victim testified that Nassar had massaged her breasts and vagina, but the university's inquiry concluded that Nassar's actions were nonsexual. Nassar was not penalized and continued to see patients (Thomason, 2018). He was only fired two years later when the Indianapolis Star reported that he had been accused of sexual abuse by two women athletes (Evans, Alesia,& Kwiatkowski, 2016). Nassar initially denied everything but eventually pleaded guilty in 2017 to multiple counts of criminal sexual activity.
Simon's presidency still seemed secure until January 2018, when more than 150 women accepted a judge's invitation to attend Nassar's sentencing hearing and share their stories of abuse. Their passionate testimony, punctuated by calls for Simon's resignation, produced a wave of revulsion on and off campus. Michigan State's board initially reaffirmed that Simon was “the right leader for the university” (Kolowich & Thomason, 2018). But the board's resolve evaporated within a few days as a media firestorm and a flood of outraged constituents led to a quick reversal. Simon resigned under pressure, expressing sorrow that a “trusted physician” had inflicted so much harm. In her own defense, she added, “As tragedies are politicized, blame is inevitable. As president, it is only natural that I am the focus of this anger” (Haag & Tracy 2018). After leaving office, Lou Anna Simon was dogged by charges of lying to police about when she first learned of accusations against Nassar (Smith & Davey, 2018; LeBlanc, 2019). A county judge eventually dismissed the charges for insufficient evidence, but Michigan's attorney general affirmed them as “solid” and said that her office likely would appeal the dismissal (Banta, 2020).
These two presidential sagas have much to teach about the similarities and the differences among colleges and universities – and what it takes to lead them. Intellect, skill, experience, and vision are always essential. So is a fit between individual and institution. Simon and Tatum both brought history and skills that aligned with the needs of their respective workplaces. The chair of Spelman's presidential search reported knowing at their first meeting that Tatum was the right person for the job: a visionary leader with the “academic bona fides” that faculty would accept, respect for Spelman's history and culture that alumnae would demand, and demonstrated fund‐raising prowess that Spelman sorely needed (McAllister‐Grande, 2015). Michigan State praised Simon's “strategic and transformative” leadership as vital for adapting the institution's land‐grant heritage to twenty‐first century global challenges, citing accomplishments like the early and above‐goal completion of a $1.5 billion capital campaign and the hiring of more than 70 new faculty members in the university's most promising research areas (Michigan State University, 2020). Skill, strategy, and opportunities to play to one's strengths are foundations of leadership success. Know thyself is a basic requirement for the job.
Every institution of higher education is unique, and its leaders face distinct challenges as a result. Spelman, a small, historically Black, women's liberal arts college in Atlanta with some 2,100 students is a very different place from Michigan State, a vast, public, land‐grant research university with a complex mission serving roughly 50,000 students. Spelman had a “highly personal, loyalty‐driven” campus culture (McAllister‐Grande, 2015), and Beverly Tatum had a personal relationship with a high percentage of Spelman's 600 employees. It was almost impossible for Lou Anna Simon to know all of the 13,000 employees who worked for her university, which multiplied the opportunities for someone, somewhere, to engage in corrupt behavior at a distance from her purview. Context matters, and understanding the unique leadership demands of an institution's culture, size, mission, and organization is vital. These two stories also underscore the importance of luck and of ethical principles: fortune sometimes causes bad things to happen under the watch of even highly competent leaders. When bad things happen to good leaders, how they respond is fateful.
Institutions across the higher education landscape also have much in common. Simon and Tatum faced many of the same challenges that confront leaders throughout higher education – fundraising, recruiting and retaining a talented workforce, fostering academic excellence, balancing complex priorities and budgets, and supporting student success. Both were demographic exceptions in the president's role, given that “[t]he typical college president is a 62‐year‐old white man with a Ph.D. who thinks his faculty just don't get it and that his college never has enough money” (Stripling, 2017). They were also atypical in that both served m...
