It seems wild to me that my son applied to only seven colleges and THREE of them recently appointed new presidents (Puget Sound, Earlham and College of Wooster). I haven’t really been following LACs too closely prior to this year, but this seems like a remarkable coincidence. Anyone have any experience (good or bad) choosing a college with brand new leadership?
Out of seven schools I would expect one to be getting a new president. It seems that your son just got lucky. Liberal arts schools are making changes, and are facing some headwinds so it is not surprising that there is some turnover. My experience 30 years ago when there was turnover at the top at my school is that for schools with strong faculty leadership it doesn’t affect the short term education much. The presidency of a college is more about long term direction, fundraising and administration than academic leadership. If a president is being brought in to make painful changes, or has a different vision for the school than the existing community it can cause some pain of course. If it concerns you, I would find out if there is a plan that the new president is being brought in to implement, and if there is buy in from the community for the plan. If that is the case, then it can be a positive change. If however, it seems that the president is being brought in to implement changes where there is not buy in (the trustees have a different vision than the faculty), then there would be cause for concern.