Lawrence S. Bacow, president emeritus of Tufts University and leader in residence at the Harvard Kennedy School, and William G. Bowen, president emeritus of Princeton University and founding chairman of ITHAKA, have commented recently on the ill-fated interventions by state attorneys general into the operations of American colleges as they attempt to make strategic shifts to address imposing financial challenges.

Today in our latest issue brief, Double Trouble: Sweet Briar College and Cooper Union, Bacow and Bowen share a more wide-ranging set of insights on the complexity of navigating fundamental change at our colleges and lessons to be taken from these two recent and highly-public cases where leaders working to address market and financial realities had their paths derailed under the myopic scrutiny of their state governments, alumni, and the public.

Bacow and Bowen encourage pulling back to a longer-term view—a perspective that all of these constituents and even college leaders themselves can struggle to take, but which is essential for the right decisions to be made if our higher education institutions are to endure in today’s world.

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Interested? Read Double Trouble: Sweet Briar College & Cooper Union.