2008 Woodie Awards
University presidents lack diversity, study says
By: Brittany Whitlow
Issue date: 3/22/07 Section: News
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"I don't think at all that I'm in a typical group, even though I fit most of those statistics," said Webster University President Richard Meyers.
The study reports 8.1 percent of college presidents are between the ages of 31 and 50, 42.6 percent are between the ages of 51 and 60 and 49.3 percent are 61 and older.
"What this shows is that we're seeing our presidents age and that they're pretty much at the point of considering to retire," said ACE Research Associate Gigi Gomez, who oversaw the study. "This gives us an opportunity to diversify the presidency."
Meyers, who is in his mid 60s, has been president of Webster for 13 years. He said he has no intention of retiring for a while. He said he differs from the norm in that he does not belong to an organized religion, his Ph.D. is in instructional technology, a branch of psychology, and his wife was born and raised in Japan.
"I think some of these comparisons need to be made on an institution-by-institution basis," he said. "I was the first person hired that I know of from outside this region; I was the first person hired with a minority spouse; I was the first person hired whose philosophy was more international than it was domestic, so there were some things that I brought to Webster that were not at all typical."
Webster's definition of "typical" is much different today than it was from 1915 to 1967, when the Sisters of Loretto ran the university.
"You have to look at what makes up Webster because this was a Catholic women's college and the norm was a Catholic nun as president," Meyers said. "When they hired the first male president who wasn't a nun, that was breaking tradition. Even though he might have been typical in higher education in general, he wasn't typical at all for Webster."
The ACE study, which also focused on female and minority college presidents, found minorities and women are more likely to lead public institutions than private ones.
"Things are changing in higher education. I don't challenge those statistics at all because private, four-year higher education is one of the more conservative areas in all of education," said Meyers, who was president of Cerro Coso Community College in Ridgecrest, Calif., Pasadena City College in Pasadena, Calif., and Western Oregon University in Monmouth, Ore., before coming to Webster.
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