“Time, Place, and Character”: The American College and University Presidency in the Late Twentieth Century

This chapter argues that the context provided by the "tyrannies" of time and place is central to understanding the president's role. Arthur Padilla's emphasis is more on "character" than on time and place. The chapter examines five recent books about the experience of college and university presidents during the 1950s through the late 1980s. It includes two presidential memoirs, a study of a presidency at a prestigious women's college, and two multiple case analyses based on interviews with former research university presidents—one using a life-cycle approach, and the other, an organizational/leadership framework. Taken together, these five accounts offer a top-down view of the academy during an era when campus leaders and their institutions faced the contradictory challenges of expanding access and quality coupled with unprecedented public scrutiny. The chapter offers indispensable historical evidence for understanding American higher education in the late twentieth century.