EdUp Provost

In this episode of EdUp Provost host Dr. Gregor Thuswaldner sits down with Dr. Shawn Hartman, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Academic Search, to explore the changing dynamics of chief academic officer and presidential searches across higher education. Shawn shares candid insights into how macro-environmental pressures, financial realities, and rapid technological shifts like AI adoption are altering search committee priorities and compressing change management timelines. They discuss why executive tenures are shrinking—pointing to president-provost alignment challenges, the burden of saddling new leaders with major structural realignments, and the systemic burnout affecting academic leaders, particularly women. Finally, Shawn offers practical advice for candidates navigating competitive search processes, managing confidentiality, and prioritizing personal well-being during executive transitions. Takeaways• Evolving Competencies & Shorter Change Timelines: Beyond traditional academic credentials, search committees are actively seeking provosts with expertise in AI integration, workforce development, and accelerated change management—compressing strategic transitions that once took years down to just 3–6 months. • The Core Question for Finalists is "How," Not "Can": By the time a candidate reaches the finalist stage, committees assume they can do the job; the critical evaluation centers on how they will lead, their alignment with institutional mission, and why the institution is the right fit for them now. • Shrinking Tenures and Structural Burden: Declining administrative tenures stem from shifting president-provost relationships, faster turnover among university presidents, and the problematic institutional practice of delaying major negative decisions (such as realignments or reductions) for an incoming provost to make upon arrival. • Gender Disparities and Systemic Support: Women in senior leadership roles are disproportionately asked to lead heavily cash-strapped or highly challenged institutions without adequate structural support or resources, contributing significantly to leadership burnout. • Sector-Specific Presidential Pipelines: While the provost-to-president pathway remains dominant overall, sector differences are widening—community colleges and regional public universities are increasingly looking to broader backgrounds in workforce development, student affairs, and industry leaders.

In this episode of EdUp Provost, host Dr. Gregor Thuswaldner sits down with Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark to examine the growing crisis of administrative leadership burnout in higher education. Moving beyond individual faculty experiences, Dr. Pope-Ruark shares key insights from her book Frayed, discussing why burnout is a systemic organizational issue rather than a personal failure, how gendered expectations uniquely burden women in academic leadership, and how provosts can leverage frameworks like Appreciative Inquiry to build sustainable, human-centered academic cultures. Takeaways• Systemic vs. Personal Issue: Burnout is defined by the World Health Organization as an occupational phenomenon caused by chronic workplace stress. Institutions must stop defaulting to personal wellness fixes (e.g., self-care emails) and address structural organizational causes. • The Gendered Heavy Lifting: Women in academic leadership—especially deans and chairs—are disproportionately assigned invisible emotional labor, caregiving tasks, and "cleaning up messes" (troubled departments/personnel issues), while male counterparts are more frequently assigned high-profile strategic initiatives. • Supporting Middle Management: Department chairs serve as middle managers balancing faculty demands with upper-administrative directives. Provosts must normalize professional development, peer cohorts, and clear delegation of authority for middle leaders. • Modeling Vulnerability & Boundaries: Senior leaders can combat burnout culture by modeling clear boundary-setting (e.g., no late-night emails, taking earned vacation, respecting no-meeting days) and framing vulnerability as institutional strength rather than weakness. • Culture of Appreciation: A primary driver of leadership burnout is feeling unseen. Simple, sincere, and specific acts of gratitude and recognition from chief academic officers can significantly boost morale and retention. • Appreciative Inquiry Framework: Provosts can shift from a purely deficit-focused approach to a strength-based framework—asking where teams are thriving and scaling those healthy cultural practices institution-wide.

In this episode, EdUp Provost host Dr. Gregor Thuswaldner sits down with Dr. Joshua M. Walehwa, Special Advisor to the EVC/COO at Washington University in St. Louis and host of The Best Worst Thing Podcast, for a candid, high-level conversation on bridging the gap between enterprise operations and academic leadership. Drawing from his unique trajectory across student affairs, academic administration, and executive operations, Dr. Walehwa offers a masterclass in navigating institutional friction. He discusses the inherent calendar and cultural misalignments between provosts and chief business officers, offering practical strategies to build collaborative, trust-based cabinet partnerships before crisis strikes. Turning to his work on resilience and narrative learning, Dr. Walehwa breaks down how academic leaders can cultivate psychological safety, dismantle destructive cultures of blame, and embrace vulnerability following high-stakes operational setbacks. The discussion also tackles the real impact of executive isolation, highlighting why tools like executive coaching, therapy, and non-formal mentor networks are indispensable for long-term sustained leadership. Takeaways:• Aligning Academic & Operational Calendars: Success requires pulling enterprise operations, IT, and financial leaders into strategic academic initiatives early to bridge the gap between multi-year capital cycles and curricular timelines. • Dismantling the Culture of Blame: Provosts must foster psychological safety by modeling personal accountability and framing operational missteps around learning rather than fault-finding. • Reframing Crisis Through Curiosity: Bouncing back from setbacks requires leaders to stay open, lean into vulnerability, and extract actionable wisdom from unexpected institutional challenges. • Combating Executive Isolation: Because cabinet-level roles can be deeply isolating, academic executives must proactively assemble a support matrix—including executive coaches, therapists, and peer mentors—to sustain their well-being. • Speaking Operational Languages: Effective chief academic officers learn to translate academic vision into the language of risk, sustainability, and scale without compromising the primary academic mission.

For this episode, EdUp Provost host Gregor Thuswaldner sat down with Nadine Burquel, Director General of HUMANE (Heads of University Management & Administration Network in Europe), to discuss the evolving landscape of European higher education leadership. Their conversation explored the structural differences between European dual-governance systems and North American institutional models, emphasizing the strategic elevation of administrative roles into high-performing "professional services" to support the core academic enterprise. Burquel outlined the major headwinds facing European institutions—including demographic shifts, severe budget strains, digital transformation, and geopolitical tensions—while highlighting how global partnerships are shifting from high-volume agreements to highly vetted, strategic alliances. She also emphasized the importance of cross-silo executive leadership, relentlessness in institutional transformation, and the necessity of keeping human-centered passion at the heart of higher education management. Takeaways• Elevating Professional Services: European universities are transforming traditional administrative support into strategic "professional services" that work alongside academic leaders to navigate institutional complexity and execute strategy. • Dual Governance Structures: Unlike the single-board models common in North America, European institutions typically operate under dual governance balancing executive boards with senates or councils for academic legitimacy. • Shared Global Pressures: European higher education leaders face strategic challenges nearly identical to those in the U.S., including shrinking 18-year-old demographics, severe budget cuts, and elevated risk assessment in international research partnerships. • Quality Over Quantity in Partnerships: Institutional internationalization has evolved past "naive" agreement-signing into carefully curated, strategic cross-border alliances aligned directly with core institutional missions. • Breaking Down Functional Silos: Effective senior leaders must transcend specialized domains—such as HR, finance, and research—to cultivate cross-functional alignment and drive transformational institutional change.

In this episode of EdUp Provost, host Dr. Gregor Thuswaldner sits down with Dr. Stephen Whitehead of Commonwealth University and 5th Hammer Innovation to discuss why great ideas in higher education so often stall before they become real change. Drawing on his consulting work, his military background, and his experience coaching academic leaders, Dr. Whitehead unpacks why execution—not creativity—is the real bottleneck in the provost's office, and offers practical frameworks for building ownership, trust, and momentum around change.Takeaways:• Ideas rarely die from a "no" — they die in the handoff, when no one owns the next step.• Focus your energy on the persuadable 60%, not the immovable 20% who will never come along.• Fall in love with the problem before designing the solution — curiosity beats speed.• Academic leaders often mistake activity (meetings, plans, dashboards) for actual progress.• A new provost's most important 90-day habit: build a listening-to-action system and act on something visible, fast.