Why Boards Are Reimagining Leadership Transitions

Turnover in higher education’s top ranks is accelerating, and campuses are feeling the effects. Deloitte’s 2025 Higher Education Trends report notes that leadership roles have experienced heightened churn in recent years, with chief academic officers and chief human resources officers among the most affected. The American Council on Education’s (ACE) most recent American College President Study adds a key data point: college presidents in 2022 had been in their roles an average of 5.9 years—down 2.6 years from 2006—underscoring how difficult it has become to sustain continuity at the top.

As vacancies mount and searches lengthen, many boards are turning to a different playbook. They are appointing interim or acting leaders for multiple years to stabilize operations while national searches proceed. A recent prominent example is the University of Florida (UF), where the state board confirmed Donald W. Landry, MD, PhD, as interim president under a contract that runs through Aug. 31, 2026. Reporting in the Wall Street Journal (Oct. 2025) describes the broader rise of interim presidencies across the country, with boards relying on temporary leaders for longer time periods amid political pressures, donor concerns, and the complexity of finding permanent candidates.

The rationale is straightforward. Presidential and cabinet-level searches have grown more demanding, candidate pools are tighter, and stakeholder scrutiny is higher. Extended interim appointments can buy time for inclusive, rigorous searches while maintaining day-to-day stability. But they also carry trade-offs. Interim leaders—no matter how capable—may face informal limits on mandate and momentum, and faculty, staff, and donors can hesitate to commit to major long-term initiatives without a permanent president in place.

The Wall Street Journal’s coverage captures both the appeal and the risks. Interims can make hard calls and calm turbulent waters, but prolonged “temporariness” can slow strategy and blur accountability if boards do not clearly define authority and timelines.

Why do leadership continuity and the design of these new roles matter? Governance experts point to direct effects on morale, strategy, and reputation. The Association of Governing Boards (AGB) emphasizes that frequent turnover can disrupt strategic planning, hinder performance, and erode stakeholder confidence. It urges boards to plan proactively for both expected and unexpected transitions. Effective transition planning, AGB adds, should explicitly address governance clarity, relationship-building, and practical onboarding to enable a new leader to act quickly in the early months.

For boards and human resource leaders, the current cycle calls for a more deliberate approach to both interims and successors:

• Treat multi-year interims as a strategy, not a stopgap. If market conditions or political dynamics make extended interim service likely, boards should define a clear mandate, decision rights, measurable objectives, and an expected timeline. That framework can help prevent “wait-them-out” paralysis and signal to the campus that interim does not mean inactive. The UF appointment, with a defined term through 2026, illustrates how formal structure can support operational stability while the search proceeds.
• Strengthen succession and capacity in academic leadership. Deloitte highlights particularly high turnover in chief academic officer and human resources roles. Boards, presidents, and CHROs can respond by building deeper internal benches—through rotational assignments, deputy roles, and targeted leadership development—so that interim appointments draw on prepared internal talent where feasible and appropriate.
• Protect strategic continuity and advancement. Even during interim periods, cross-functional transition teams can keep accreditation, budget planning, and fundraising milestones on track. AGB’s guidance is blunt: without intentional planning, leadership churn can stall strategy and weaken stakeholder trust.
• Use evidence to calibrate timelines and expectations. Sector-wide data on tenure and turnover can help set realistic search timelines and onboarding plans. ACE’s findings on declining presidential tenure should prompt boards to plan for more frequent transitions and to normalize succession conversations long before a vacancy.

The forces behind today’s turnover—demographic headwinds, financial strain, political crosswinds, and rapid technological change—are not likely to abate any time soon. Interim leadership can provide valuable breathing room, but only if paired with clear authority and disciplined search processes.

In short, leadership design has become a strategic lever. Institutions that professionalize succession and clarify interim mandates will be better positioned to steady morale, sustain strategy, reassure donors, and respond quickly to the next disruption. Those who treat leadership changes as episodic, rather than as structural features to manage, risk remaining stuck in prolonged transition, just as the pace of change demands clarity and speed.