It's been about 50 years since we graduated from college — Scripps College class of '71 and Miami University of Ohio class of '74. We've both spent our adult lives working in universities, witnessing many changes, especially in the college presidency.

While identifying these is relatively easy, we've been curious about the possible causes. As our starting point, we analyzed the classified ads for presidencies and chancellorships in The Chronicle of Higher Education from academic years 1975-76 through 2015-16 to identify trends in hiring. Here is what we found.

  • The length of presidential tenure is shortening.
  • More searches are failing — both to appoint a president and/or to identify a president who serves even a year.
  • More presidents are leaving their positions before completing their first terms.
  • Some search firms have had problematic searches.
  • Female presidents have become more prevalent, but we see little change in racial and ethnic representation in the college presidency.

Read the full article about college president pipelines by Judith Wilde and James Finkelstein at Higher Education Dive.