on the job: chestnut hill college’s new president
Universities and colleges have a lot on their plate when it comes time to select a new leader.
From identifying qualified applicants to choosing an eventual hire, a thousand different considerations need to be made. There are protocols and search committees, rounds and rounds of interviews with administrators, faculty, students and more before selecting an individual to lead an institution into the future. Once that is all said and done, a whole new set of questions arise. Because now itʻs time to present that individual to the university AND the wider world.
One of my newer clients — Chestnut Hill College — recently went through this exact process when their beloved president of thirty years retired. After a thorough search, CHC appointed Dr. William W. Latimer as their new president. (There has been a lot of leadership change in The Philly education scene that I’ve gotten to cover recently, from Saint Joseph’s University appointing their first female president, to LaSalle‘s inauguration last fall, and The Baldwin School’s new Head of School.)
A new leader becomes a sort of representation of the university as a whole. They're the human embodiment of the institution’s mission. Are they a hard line academic? Or a big alumni networker and fundraiser? Or are they a mixture of those two or something totally different? How that leader is introduced can impact the effectiveness of their tenure.
Thatʻs a lot of what goes into the planning for the photo shoot that will result in the first institutional images of the new leader.
For Dr. Latimer — Chestnut Hill Collegeʻs new president — we opted for a low-key approach. The previous president, Sister Carol Jean Vale, had been in the position for the previous thirty years. She was a stalwart and very recognizable figure. CHC’s team and I decided it was important to help introduce Dr. Latimer to the college community as a friendly face on campus. We wanted a presidential portrait that was approachable rather than locked away in an administrative office or board room.
Working within the tight confines of a presidentʻs schedule, we were able to carve out a little more than an hour to capture images of him in a few different, recognizable areas on campus. That, paired with some excellent writing and video production, would be his introduction to the Chestnut Hill College community.
That was the best of many options for Chestnut Hill’s particular case. It's important to diagnose each scenario based on the components at play, though. If your school or university (or even your business) is going through a leadership change, letʻs talk about what sort of imagery would work best for showcasing that leadership to the world.
