Joan Gabel Leaving Minnesota for University of Pittsburgh

Lawyer president Joan Gabel is leaving the presidency at the University of Minnesota System and Twin Cities campus to lead the University of Pittsburgh as its 19th Chancellor effective July 2024. Gabel is the first woman to lead both flagship universities.

Gabel previously served as executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of South Carolina (2015 to 2019), and she was Dean of the University of Missouri's Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business from 2010 to 2015.

Gabel holds a J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law.

Jonathan Alger named President of American University

Long-time James Madison University, President Jonathan Alger, has been appointed as the 16th President of American University effective July 2024.

Jon Alger is highly regarded as a visionary leader in higher education who has an impressive record of accomplishments at JMU and throughout his career in academia.

Alger previously served as senior vice president and general counsel at Rutgers University.  While assistant general counsel at the University of Michigan, he played a leading role in two landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases on race and admissions. While at both Michigan and Rutgers, Alger taught courses in leadership, law, higher education, public policy and diversity. He also worked as counsel for the American Association of University Professors and the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

Alger earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Legal Background Noted as a Path to the College Presidency

In February 2024, WittKieffer released a report, Talent Insights: The Path to the College Presidency, where they confirmed that while presidents specialize in a wide variety of academic areas, 13% have a legal education (J.D.) background. This statistic reiterates the finding in May it Please the Campus: Lawyers Leading Higher Education. The report also notes that while provosts positions are typical stepping stones to the presidency (38%), 22% of presidents previously served as a dean immediately prior to their presidential appointment. A recent blog post about lawyer provosts also shows this connection, and the data in May it Please the campus shows the number of law school deans who later became presidents (some went right to the presidency while others stopped in the provost office first).

The report contains infographics with lots of interesting data points including:

• The average age of current presidents is 63 years old.

• 68% of presidents are male and 32% are female.

• The average tenure of a president is 8 years.

• 55 years of age is the average for first appointment as a president.

• One quarter of current university presidents at leading institutions previously held the role elsewhere.