Working in academia has long been a dream role for many scholars, practitioners, and working professionals (Larsson & Alvinius, 2019). We asked a group of leaders from institutions of higher education what compelled them to work in a college or university setting. Their responses included seeking to recreate the transformational experience they had as students, to emulate the professors they learned from in the classroom, and “to make a difference.” After all, the typical college setting has historically had an aura of prestige: it’s been a place with community recognition where academic freedom is protected, new ideas emerge, and the next generation of critically thinking students are molded into thoughtful participants within society.
Beyond the Credential Factory: Why Higher Education Must Shift from Management to Flourishing
For decades, higher education leadership has obsessed over “student success” as a purely operational metric. We track retention and graduation rates and postgraduation outcomes with the same linear precision that
Yoshitaka Iwasaki
August 3, 2026
