“Walking the Tightrope:
The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership”
Walter E. Massey, Ph.D.
President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
The Council of Independent Colleges – 2011 Presidents Institute
Palm Springs, California
January 4, 2011
Thank you, MaryAnn.
I am extremely honored to have been asked to serve as the keynote speaker for this year’s
Council of Independent Colleges Presidents Institute. Of course, there is always a fair amount of
pressure on the first person who formally speaks at this type of gathering. You want to set the
right tone for what will follow and, hopefully, say something novel, brilliant and/or exciting to
kick things off. Well, I am not sure how close I will come to meeting that high standard, but I do
hope to at least give you something interesting to think about.
Fortunately, I feel very much at home sharing my views with you, as I am quite familiar with
most of the CIC schools. I have been president of one of your member institutions, Morehouse
College, and I am an honorary graduate of three: Allegheny, Rhodes, and Sewanee. I also have
had the privilege of getting to know some of you through Morehouse’s membership in the
Associated Colleges of the South and the UNCF, as well as from my vantage point as a trustee
for the Mellon Foundation. I must say how pleased I am that Mellon has been able to support
your institutions, either directly or through your various associations with ACS, the Appalachian
Colleges Association, and CIC.
As you have heard, I now have a new job as president of the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago. We are a different kind of institution from most CIC members – larger than most, with
about 3,000 students, of whom approximately 800 are graduate students. We are geographically
diverse, with students from all 50 states and 50 foreign countries.
But, in many respects, SAIC, as we call it, is more similar to your institution than you might
think. We are private and share a commitment to personal faculty-student interactions. We are
teaching oriented, and our students are exposed to a liberal arts curriculum, including
philosophy, history and literature. But it is the SAIC’s emphasis on student development –
allowing and encouraging students to explore their creative limits and learn whom they are as
individuals and artists – that causes me to make the claim of similarity.
During the reception that follows this session, I hope to be able to reconnect and say hello to
those of you I already know, and to meet many of you I do not yet know. So, please help me with
that by making a point of introducing yourselves.
Over the next few days of this conference, you will be considering a very challenging topic: “A
Dynamic Equilibrium: Essential Missions, Evolving Models.” So, during my time with you this
evening, I want to explore briefly some of the ways that you, as college presidents, might address
this challenge at your institutions.
Here is the plan: For about 40 minutes or so, I am going to speak from prepared remarks about
what I think dynamic equilibrium is, and how this concept relates to higher education’s role in
society. Then, I will give my views on what I think the major issues are that we have to consider
as we strive for dynamic equilibrium, and discuss what this means for both educational missions
and delivery models.
I alert you now that I will not have a silver bullet, or a prescribed formula to follow, but I will
outline some of the key drivers that I think are necessary for achieving and maintaining dynamic
equilibrium. After the talk, we will open the floor for a question-and-answer period.
As I said, the idea of achieving and maintaining dynamic equilibrium in higher education
certainly is a challenging topic. You should know at the outset that I think of dynamic
equilibrium in terms of physics – that being the subject I studied in undergraduate and graduate
school and later taught, and the field in which I conducted and directed research for much of my
career. So, I think of an “equilibrium state” as being stable, with the boundary conditions or
external forces being constant, what one might call “static equilibrium.” In a state of dynamic
equilibrium, however, the boundary conditions or external forces are always changing, and
equilibrium is maintained by constantly adjusting the internal state of the system to adjust to the
external environment – a delicate balancing act.
The image that comes to mind in this regard is that of a college president walking a tightrope:
There you are, standing on the edge of a cliff. A rope is tied to one side and it stretches across a
vast chasm to the other side. Someone has driven you to the edge – your board chairperson, your
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 2 alumni association president, your CFO, your VP for development, your faculty council chair, or
your student government association leader – whoever it is who has driven you to the edge hands
you your briefcase, pats you on the back, points you toward the other side, and wishes you good
luck as you place one foot and then the other on the rope.
Depending on your particular circumstances, you wobble precariously for a period of time before
you get your balance. But, eventually, thanks to outstanding leadership on your part, things settle
down. You are stable. You know that you and your institution are not going to fall. You have
achieved equilibrium. Everything is okay. Or is it?
Well, the problem is those external forces I mentioned a few moments ago. They keep changing.
And, in order for you to keep your balance, you have to adjust and change, too. On top of that,
you realize at some point that the whole reason for your being on the tightrope in the first place
is to cross to the other side. This means, of course, that standing still simply is not an option. So,
you sacrifice the relative calm you have achieved and take the next step, starting the cycle of
wobbling and gaining your balance all over again – and again, and again, and again.
The moral of this little vignette is that to maintain dynamic equilibrium not only requires
balancing current circumstances, but also adjusting to new circumstances, and moving forward.
To put it another way: Maintaining static equilibrium is about where we are now, the present;
establishing dynamic equilibrium is about adjusting and moving toward where we want to go,
the future.
And what about the future? What are the major trends and issues that are likely to have the
greatest impact on our institutions and, therefore, the greatest impact on where we want to go and
how we might use the concept of dynamic equilibrium to get there?
We all are familiar with these, and even a quick look or listen to the news of the day reminds us
that there is no shortage of complex problems and crises that affect us and our constituents,
either directly or indirectly, everything from the economy, to health care, to wars and civil
unrest, to crime in our communities, to the fact that many young people are academically,
socially and/or financially unprepared for the rigors of higher education.
In some sense, this list, itself, is not really new. College presidents throughout history have faced
a similar set of societal problems, relevant to their times, about which they were concerned and
for which they prepared their students. But what is new for our current generation of college
presidents, I believe, is the effect of two what I call “macro issues” that overarch and drive just
about everything else that is occurring in our society. These macro issues, the dominant external
forces that affect our ability to achieve and maintain balance, are globalization and accelerated
change.
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 3 Indeed, the word globalization has become almost a cliché. Nevertheless, it is descriptive of so
much that is happening today.
Thanks mostly to advances in technology and communications, we live in a world without
boundaries in which few events of any significance are contained within geographical borders, in
a world where seemingly isolated political, economic or military events anywhere on the globe
invariably wind up affecting us in the United States, and vice versa. It is a flat world, as Tom
Friedman has said.
Two cases in point: The first, climate change, with its broad impact on the planet, is a strong
manifestation of our global interdependence. And the second is the current economic crisis that
our nation is facing. This is an equally vivid and sobering reminder of the fact that we live in a
truly global economy. From my vantage point as chairman of Bank of America, I had an all-tooclose view of the interconnectedness of the global financial infrastructure. Who would have
thought that defaults on mortgages in Riverside, California, could have contributed to the failure
of a major bank in Ireland, or to the decline in college endowments by as much as 30 percent in
some cases?
The other “macro issue” – change – is another of those cliché words. But, again, it is
nevertheless apropos to our current reality.
I use the term “accelerated change” because the biggest change we are experiencing today is the
pace of change – how quickly what we accepted as a given is no longer so. Daryl R. Conner,
author of Managing at the Speed of Change, put it well when he wrote, “Never before has so
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 4 much changed so fast and with such dramatic implications for the entire world. From the nuclear
family to nuclear-arms treaties, our way of life is transforming as we live it.”
As with globalization, much of this accelerated change is driven by advances in technology,
which in a very short period of time has transformed how we communicate, diagnose and treat
diseases, grow food, construct buildings, use transportation and enjoy entertainment.
Accelerated change is also manifested in our social interactions. Remember when the topic of
diversity was about relations between blacks and whites? Having grown up in the South during a
period of rigid segregation, I recall this vividly. Today, diversity refers to race, ethnicity, gender,
sexual orientation, political affiliation, and religious belief – literally every difference we
embody and reflect as human beings.
Indeed, how we talk about diversity is changing as rapidly as the nation’s demographics are
changing. For example, when I began my first teaching job at the University of Illinois in 1967,
the Hispanic population in the U.S. was less than five percent. It is now about 16 percent, and is
projected to be one third of the population by 2050. And Asian Americans, who were not really
talked about then, are now the fastest growing group of college attendees. A big change, indeed.
Another rapidly changing area of social life is work. Remember when someone who got a job
could expect to work for the same company until retirement? Today, gone is the notion of
lifelong employment at one place, and even lifelong work in a single profession or a career path
is no longer the uniform expectation.
Probably the most accurate thing we can say about the future is that it will be less stable, more
unpredictable, and more volatile in practically all respects. Importantly for us, that is, for the
higher education community, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity – one might say
responsibility – because this future will call for educated citizens who are productive and
contributing members of society. And this is our raison d’être – producing educated citizens.
As you know, President Obama has launched an initiative to drastically increase the number of
college graduates by 2020. The United States, once the leader in producing college graduates,
has fallen significantly behind other countries, with some significant consequences for our
nation. Raguram Rajan, professor of economics at the University of Chicago, argues in a recent
book that one of the causes of our falling behind economically and being less competitive
globally is the fact that we have fewer college graduates. He writes:
“Although the United States has led historically in the fraction of the population with high school
degrees, that fraction has not increased since 1980, and other countries have caught up and
surpassed the United States. Moreover, while more and more Americans in the 20-24 age group
are going to college (61 percent in 2003, up from 44 percent in 1980), college graduation rates
have not kept pace…. College graduation rates for young men born in the 1970s are no higher
than for men born in the 1940s, a shocking fact when one considers how much great demand
there is now for workers with a college degree.”
On the one hand, as President Obama notes, we simply need more individuals graduating from
college. And this is a challenge we can accept. But, as Dr. Molly Broad, president of the
American Council on Education, points out, just having more college graduates will not
necessarily allow us to meet some of the most important needs of the nation, particularly when
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 5 we consider countries like China and India, which have almost four times the population we
have.
“The United States cannot compete with these emerging economic superpowers on the size of
our college-educated population,” says Broad. “We must be able to compete on the superior
quality of education in our workforce and the ability of our people to innovate.”
Clearly then, to meet our nation’s needs for an educated, productive and creative citizenry, for
colleges to fulfill our societal role of producing both a “greater quantity “and “better quality” of
graduates, our institutions must evidence, as your conference theme suggests, dynamic
equilibrium between two critical areas: educational content and our service delivery model.
First we must continue to improve and adapt the educational content that we offer. This speaks to
our essential missions. The curricular and extra-curricular program, which has been inspired by
our centuries-old liberal arts tradition, has certainly served us well over the years, and it has
evolved. But now it must also be informed by 21st century realities.
To move our institutions and our nation forward, we will need to produce graduates who can
manage what Phillip Lewis, vice president of the Mellon Foundation, referred to as the
“turbulent socioeconomic environment” that many will face. This means educating students to
do at least three things: to navigate change, to function in a global society, and to make positive
contributions to society.
To navigate change we require:
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 6 § women and men who have the knowledge, skills, ethical values, and leadership
abilities to work with others to achieve goals and to manage change; and
§ men and women whose education, attitude and perspectives on life allow them to be
prepared to change employment or careers, and re-invent themselves as necessary.
To function in a global society we will need:
§ women and men who have a broad set of skills and views on life that are gained
through the study of the past, knowledge of other societies, and familiarity with the
successes and failures of others who have had to navigate their way through difficult
situations in life; and
§ men and women who have a global cultural awareness, who not only understand
diversity intellectually, but who have experienced it and are comfortable working in
diverse environments of various multiple sorts, that will allow them to succeed in and
contribute to a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural global society.
And to make a positive difference in the world, we must have:
§ graduates who are technologically aware and technologically competent, who not
only can participate in and be part of this rapidly changing technological society, but
also understand the limitations, as well as the possibilities, of technology, and who
will appreciate the difference between information gathering and learning, the
difference between connecting with and knowing others.
In addition to all this, our graduates will need to be entrepreneurs in every respect, have a
capacity, a desire, a predilection and the confidence and boldness to create new things, new
organizations, enterprises and businesses. As Molly Broad said, they need to be able to innovate.
And not just business entrepreneurs, who are motivated primarily by obtaining wealth, but also –
and, perhaps, most especially – social entrepreneurs, who see societal needs and develop ways to
meet those needs, people like:
§ Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America;
§ Matthew Fields, a Morehouse graduate, who created an educational consulting
company, BEST – Building Excellent Schools Together – that focuses on
restructuring public schools and providing tutoring services to students in need; and
§ Emily Pilloton, a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, who used her
graduate degree in designed objects to start the nonprofit Project H Design to create
humanitarian products that are improving life on a global scale.
And, yes, it will help society immeasurably if we can nurture and develop a few bona fide
geniuses and prodigies and heroes, those unique individuals who truly change the course of
society and history. A Bill Gates, a Martin Luther King Jr., a Jonas Salk, and a Maya Lin are
always needed.
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 7 This is a lot to ask of our institutions, but we have educated in the past the kind of people our
nation needed, and now we have to adapt to deliver what is needed in the future. I am sure we
can do this. We will evolve our educational content, as appropriate, but beyond educational
content, we have to address the other major challenge that requires a dynamic equilibrium, and
that is our service delivery model.
Educational content, the essential missions aspect of the conference theme, is just that, essential.
But it is not sufficient for dynamic equilibrium. There must also be a foundation for moving
forward in our service delivery models in order to respond to what today’s students are
demanding from higher education, and to ensure that a college education is accessible and
affordable for everyone who wants one.
Over the past several decades, there has been a decided shift in how higher education is viewed
and valued in our country. For many, if not most, earning a college degree is not so much
something people want to experience for the sheer joy of learning as it is something in which
they are willing to invest for the promise of future returns. And, indeed, data do show that people
with college degrees fair better on most economic and social measures than those without college
degrees. A very important consideration.
The challenge for us is that this emphasis on return on investment can mean that higher
education ends up being treated like a commodity, something that is analyzed and assessed like
any other major purchase might be. As they use Consumer Reports for shopping, prospective
students and their parents may make a “buying decision” largely based on the college rankings
and profiles in U.S. News and World Report – not to mention how much of a “discount” they can
receive in the form of various scholarships and awards.
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 8 Those of us who have dedicated even some portion of our careers to higher education know that
a college education is so much more than a business transaction. We know that going to college
and earning a degree is one of the best ways to enrich one’s life and to develop and nurture one’s
potential.
Alfred Whitney Griswold, who served as president of Yale University from 1951 to 1963, put it
this way: “A college education is not a quantitative body of knowledge salted away in a card file.
It is a taste for knowledge, a taste for philosophy, if you will; a capacity to explore, to question,
to perceive relationships, between fields of knowledge and experience.” Gary Becker, Nobel
Laureate in Economics at the University of Chicago, coined the term “human capital,” which I
think captures some of these qualities of education.
We must realize that while we are touting the benefits of a liberal arts education and a broad
curriculum, taught by dedicated and learned faculty, on beautiful, residential campuses, in the
company of like-minded men and women, many prospective students and parents are
challenging this traditional educational delivery model and demanding something different,
something more. And, as you know, many institutions, including public, private and for-profit
schools, are responding to this demand with attractive academic alternatives, such as online
courses, commuter campuses, evening degree programs, and the like – all delivered with a strong
emphasis on customer service. To keep up with the competition in this “the-customer-is-alwaysright” environment, college presidents are under pressure to change what we offer and how we
offer it.
At the same time, we are under pressure to cut costs. Our boards, our students and parents, our
alumni, our donors, even the general public, all want us to be more accountable, more efficient,
more cost-conscious – in other words, more business-like. And we should be. We owe it to our
constituents to make a serious commitment to cutting the fat out of our budgets, wherever we
find it. But, in our labor-intensive enterprises, this usually involves some combination of
leveraging technology and eliminating jobs and/or programs. So, we risk ending up with larger
class sizes instead of small student-teacher ratios; automated advisement instead of one-on-one
mentoring, and what one observer has termed the “adjunctification” of the faculty, more and
more part-time faculty.
Obviously, these are not the most desirable choices – but neither is having to set tuition at a level
that is out of reach for our prospective students. And sometimes, it simply is not feasible or
timely to launch yet another capital campaign.
These pressures to respond to student demands and to run more cost-efficient operations mean
that college presidents must consider to what degree emerging models can help them achieve the
dynamic equilibrium required to remain viable. But how do we do all this?
Well, let’s go back to you on that tightrope.
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 9 Obviously, the key is to recognize when it is important to stay the course, and when it is
important to change, when it is prudent to remain stable right where you are on the rope, and
when and how you must forsake that present stability and take the next steps forward.
I wish I could offer a detailed roadmap for achieving the dynamic equilibrium we seek, but I
cannot. This is a complicated problem with so many variables, depending upon your specific
circumstances, that it is impossible to offer precise answers. However, it is possible, I believe, to
identify some of the key drivers that should guide your deliberations and decision making as you
consider your particular circumstances.
So, I will conclude my remarks by suggesting five. As you will see, these ideas come not only
from my experiences in higher education, but also from my experiences serving in various
leadership roles at corporations and foundations. I believe we can learn from all of our
experiences. You might think of these drivers as the ballasts you attach to your balancing pole to
help you gain and maintain dynamic equilibrium.
The first driver is vision and message.
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 10 I learned the importance of this at Morehouse. Shortly after I became president, I started talking
about my vision that Morehouse, already a stellar institution, would become one of the finest
liberal arts colleges in the nation – period. I undertook a kind of messaging campaign, if you
will, which included my talking about this idea as often as I could to everyone I could – students,
faculty, staff, alumni, donors, and friends of the College.
And I did not just talk, I also listened. I invited and encouraged these various constituents to tell
me what our being one of the finest liberal arts colleges period would mean to them. And
gradually, together, we developed a shared vision for Morehouse, complete with a strategic plan
and measureable outcomes that guided key decisions from the level of the Board of Trustees
down to the Office of Campus Operations, and everything in between.
Having a strong vision and message, I believe, is a key factor in achieving dynamic equilibrium.
It helps you and others see and appreciate who you are as an institution, where you want to go,
and why it is important to get there.
The second driver is quality.
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 11 I have come to appreciate the importance of quality through my service on the board of the
Mellon Foundation. Mellon funds a variety of institutions: research universities, liberal arts
colleges, museums, symphony orchestras, and the like. No matter who is the grantee, the
underlying factor behind the decision to make a grant is whether or not it will enable the
institution to enhance the quality of its offering. In other words, will the funding help to make an
institution among the best in its class?
Over the years on the board, I have seen how this focus on quality has affected many institutions,
including many in the CIC. Quality is a critical driver in attaining dynamic equilibrium because
it means always focusing on continuing improvement in all you do.
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 12 The third driver that college presidents can use to gain and maintain dynamic equilibrium is
institutional loyalty.
This might surprise you, but I have learned a great deal about institutional loyalty from my
service on the board of the USTA, the United States Tennis Association.
Now you may know the USTA primarily through the US Open, our flagship event. But this is a
marvelously complex, broad-based organization of thousands of volunteers whose goal is to
promote the game of tennis, and to make tennis make a difference in the lives of young people.
The loyalty that these volunteers demonstrate through the hard work they put into the
organization is truly inspiring.
This loyalty is motivated by the existence of a vision and message, as well as an organizational
commitment to quality, which allows volunteers to coalesce around a common goal. Having your
various constituencies be loyal to the institution is critical to getting through difficult periods of
change.
The fourth driver is organizational effectiveness.
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 13 Again, I may surprise you here, but I have seen this most clearly demonstrated at McDonald’s,
where I served on the board for over 10 years. One of the keys to the success of this company is
ensuring that wherever in the world customers see those Golden Arches, they know what to
expect. To deliver on this brand promise requires a corporate commitment to organizational
effectiveness, which includes the suppliers, franchise owners, and employees.
In this model of the three legged stool, each leg is important and necessary. The suppliers must
reliably deliver a high quality product that the public can trust; the franchise owners, who are
independent entrepreneurs, must agree to act in the interest of the system as a whole, not just
their restaurants. And the McDonald’s corporate employees, from the CEO down must see
themselves as the caretakers and guardians of the system’s reputation and brand. It actually
works. (What are our three-legged stools?)
Without organizational effectiveness, vision and message can become hollow, quality will never
be achieved, and institutional loyalty will be extremely difficult to sustain.
The fifth driver is creativity.
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 14 When I retired from Morehouse, I thought that was my last job as a college president. But since
September 2010, I have being happily serving as president of the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago.
It is no understatement to say that this is the most exciting and creative environment in which I
have worked. Now, one might expect that at a College of Art and Design, but I must say I am
still awed by being in an environment where the vision and message is “We Are Explorers.” And
that applies to students, faculty and staff.
We say that we try to encourage “critical thinking, rigorous investigation and playful creativity”
in our students. If I am correct that the future will be characterized by accelerated change and
volatility, and what Phil Lewis terms a “turbulent socioeconomic environment,” then the ability
to be creative will be paramount in maintaining dynamic equilibrium.
So, there you have it: vision and mission, quality, institutional loyalty, organizational
effectiveness and creativity – my list of the drivers that can help you move forward in your
pursuit of dynamic equilibrium.
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 15 The key words are move forward. Remember, I said that really is the whole point of dynamic
equilibrium – to make your institutions more than and better than they have been before in
service to society.
As you undertake this movement forward, I hope you will be encouraged by the many
contributions you already have made, individually and collectively for the betterment of our
nation and the world. CIC schools enroll almost 1.3 million students and graduate, on average,
more than 200,000 each year, taking with them the knowledge and skills they have developed
and honed at your institutions. So, you have done well.
But, as the saying goes, a college president/tightrope walker’s work is never done. Actually,
there is no such saying, but you get my point. At Morehouse, I would frequently remind staff and
faculty that excellence is a moving target, that no matter how hard we worked on behalf of our
students, no matter how much we progressed toward achieving our strategic goals, there always
was still more work left to be done.
And so it is with all of us. We never reach the future because by the time we get there, it is the
present again, with new external forces to consider, new dynamic equilibrium to establish, new
chasms to cross. But we remember our commitment to our profession and to our institutions, we
muster our courage, and we step forward. That is who college presidents are. That is what you
do.
I am proud to count myself among your number. -- Thank you.
“Walking the Tightrope: The Dynamic Equilibrium of Presidential Leadership” Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., President, School of the Art Institute of Chicago January 4, 2011 16