Source Headwaters Update: Presidential Beginnings

Abstract

Presidents of higher education institutions are a major source of vision and direction for their respective universities.  Established research has shown that a variety of demographic, psychographic and personal characteristics may impact one’s thoughts and actions.  Undoubtedly, for university presidents, their educational background and the source of their terminal degree play roles in their abilities to lead and in developing their visions.  For this paper, we examined the educational background of public university presidents to determine the degree of homogeneity across institutions.  The question we seek to address is if vision and leadership are overly influenced by a common educational background with little diversity in source and field of terminal degree.