Peril and Promise

College Leadership in Turbulent Times

By: Beverly Daniel Tatum

Narrated by: Beverly Daniel Tatum

A former college president and bestselling author offers leadership lessons for today’s troubled campuses

Higher education is under assault from all sides. Scandals, protests, and dramatic resignations dominate the news cycle, and the pressure has grown so severe that the average tenure of university presidents has fallen to less than six years. Even so, Peril and Promise insists, American universities provide the solutions to the ignorance and division that plague our society—but only if wise, courageous leaders step up.

Blending insights from social science with many years of experience as a college president at Spelman and Mount Holyoke Colleges, Beverly Daniel Tatum celebrates the power of leadership to make higher education a force for good. Alongside an unflinching look at the financial challenges, political attacks, and social problems that besiege today’s college campuses, she offers real-life leadership examples of institutions that have overcome the steepest odds and produced real transformation in ideas, student bodies, and society at large.

At once conversational and contemplative, Peril and Promise reckons with the complexities of higher education in our time, while exhorting future leaders to take up the mantle and chart a path forward for our campuses and country.

Critic reviews

“A consummate educator, Beverly Tatum has a talent for making the complex clear and engaging her audience with compelling examples. In Peril and Promise, she brings the challenges—and the opportunities—facing higher education together in a compelling narrative that will both inform and inspire her readers. Highly recommended!”

—Arne Duncan, Managing Partner, ChicagoCRED and former U.S. Secretary of Education

The breath of the issues she discussed and facts and details supporting those issues.

The chapter on risk, mental health, etc was my favorite chapter. I also particularly liked some of the stories Dr Tatum’s shared about being a new President including a dialogue about shared governance. It’s an easy read(or listen) and I recommend it to anyone thinking about being a college President or in their first couple of years in the role. And it’s about leadership!