Do you know who leads our colleges and universities?
September 30, 2024
Many of us are familiar with the impressive stories and statistics of immigrants who lead our companies and even the health sector—who hasn’t heard of Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Sergey Brin of Alphabet, and Noubar Afeyan of Moderna? But do you know who the immigrant “rockstars” are who lead our colleges and universities and steward these massive engines of knowledge and talent production?
A growing rank of U.S. college and university presidents and chancellors are of immigrant origin, having arrived here either as international students or as children or youth accompanying their immigrant parents.
Over the past few years, my work has evolved from studying international student trends to also examining the broad impacts of this type of migration and the value of international students and immigrants.
This impact is seen very clearly in U.S. higher education not just in the form of students, but also the changing demographics of the leadership.
I first began to learn about this trend and to focus on it through my work with the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. We began exploring this last year by looking at how exactly foreign-born and immigrant-origin individuals make their way to the top-most rungs of institutional leadership, and the pathways and challenges that exist.
I have been following Dr. Marcelo Suarez-Orozco’s research and scholarship on immigration for most of my career, so it was a thrilling moment for me to meet him at an event in Boston, jointly organized by the Presidents’ Alliance, UMass-Boston (where he is the Chancellor), and other partners.
Since then, we have begun to map—institution by institution—the origins of the leadership, beginning first with the Presidents’ Alliance’s own membership, which includes many immigrant-origin leaders like Chancellor Marcelo Suarez-Orozco of the University of Massachusetts, Boston (who is coincidentally one of the nation’s foremost immigration scholars); President Raj Echambadi of Illinois Institute of Technology; Pam Eddinger, President of Bunker Hill Community College, and so many others.
Read the full report here to learn about what we found and to read more about the 220 presidents and chancellors we have covered in this report, including in-depth profiles of 20 of them. Their origins range from Canada to China, and countries in between.
As an Indian American immigrant and former international student from India, I am especially proud to see that Indian immigrants constitute the largest group of immigrant-origin leaders of U.S. colleges and universities in our analysis. In addition to President Raj Echambadi, some of them include: Neeli Bendapudi of Penn State; Sonya Christian of the California Community Colleges; and Renu Khattor of the University of Houston system.
What is next for this important research?
We plan to continue to map these trends—there are, after all, 4000+ institutions in the U.S.! But we also need additional support to truly document the impact of the international global leadership of U.S. higher education. Please reach out to the Presidents’ Alliance or to me if you have some ideas for us.
Thanks as always for reading and engaging with this newsletter. And if you like the content, please feel free to share it with others.
Read & Listen!
Marlene M. Johnson, the former Executive Director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, is out with a new book which is a memoir of her life. I read the book over the summer as I prepared to host Marlene on my podcast. It’s a terrific read that takes us behind the scenes of the life of an influential leader. And be sure to listen to the episode with Marlene where we have a wide-ranging discussion about her journey from politics to international education; the current state of affairs in the field; and her takeaways as a leader.
In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, I’m sharing one of my top picks on the theme of education and immigration. Reyna Grande’s powerful story of being a Mexican American, first-generation college student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is a must read. I found many parallels between her book and the experiences of international students in the U.S. who are trying to acclimate to a new way of education and learning. Reyna is today the bestselling author of several books that touch upon the immigrant experience. I was honored and delighted that one of my book launch events was a conversation with her about our books.
On the Road…Events, Talks & Workshops
September 14 was the three-year anniversary of America Calling, and perhaps it was fitting that I got to celebrate this day with 200+ Indian students at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, at an event organized by their Center for Indic Studies and the Provost's office.
Not surprisingly, many of the campus faculty and leaders are also former international student, including Dr. Tesfay Meressi who serves as the Associate Provost for Graduate Studies and is originally from Eritrea.
As I reflect on the past three years, I'm beyond grateful and thrilled that the book--and most importantly its messages--have reached so many in our sector and across US campuses. During this time I've had the opportunity to visit dozens of campuses, interact with hundreds of international students, university administrators and leaders, and so many others who serve international students and care deeply about their well-being.
What I am reminded of each time is both the joy and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be an international student, but also the immense challenges that remain, be it visa denials, funding, OPT, and accents.
Some time ago, I had the honor of being invited by the University of Maine to engage in a salon talk about my book and my thoughts on how to ensure that we help international students thrive.
In 2023, the university's Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning had adopted my book as a group read and so this in-person event was a wonderful opportunity to interact with many in the university who had read the book, and to also learn directly from the university's international students.
To my great delight, there were also several attendees from the local American Association for University Women (AAUW) chapter who had read about my AAUW International Fellowship in the book and had decided to come to the event.
The Fogler Library used the occasion of my visit to showcase the University's history of hosting international students since 1891. The display also included all sorts of cool artifacts and displays representing students from around the world.
The evening ended with a raffle of a gift basket for an international student that contained, among other things, a one-hour coaching session with me. I'm so pleased that the winner was an Indian woman, which felt like a wonderful coincidence.
CLIENT & PARTNER SPOTLIGHT!
Given the theme of this issue, we are but naturally featuring our very first and most longstanding client and partner—the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, an alliance of American college and university leaders dedicated to increasing public understanding of how immigration policies and practices impact their students, campuses and communities. Led by its co-founder, Miriam Feldblum, herself an immigrant scholar and former university leader, the organization is the only of its kind that it tackles the nexus of higher education and immigration issues. I’ve had the immense privilege of working closely with them as a Senior Advisor ever since I launched my firm and—over the past three years—we have addressed through research many of the barriers that international students face in the U.S., including visa denials; OPT; how to enumerate international students who are refugees; and funding and financing challenges.
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