After a 50-year career, Charles Middleton recently retired as President of Roosevelt University. In this month’s interview, Middleton reflects on his role as one of the founding members of the LGBTQ Presidents in Higher Education Association, what it takes to be a successful administrator, and his current role as Chair of the Board of Trustees of City Colleges of Chicago.

Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: You have held numerous leadership positions in higher education including vice chancellor for academic affairs, provost and vice president of academic affairs, dean of the college of arts and sciences, and most recently, president. What traits made you a successful leader and did they differ in each of these roles?

Charles Middleton, Ph.D.: Fundamentally the same attributes that contribute to success in any one of these positions also serve well in the others. I’d say that key among them is the ability to listen and to give people time to express their views, the ability to sort the various options that present themselves when an issue arises, the ability to place the options in a broader context than just the specific issue itself, and finally and most importantly, a capacity to act in a timely manner when it is the moment to make a decision and move on.

Hibel: After a 50-year career in higher education, you retired from your role as president of Roosevelt University [link removed no longer active] on June 30, 2015. What has kept you passionate about education through the years?

Middleton: I developed a very strong belief in the power of education to liberate the individual back when I was an undergraduate in the 1960’s. I think it is quite fine that having a college degree enhances earning power over a career span, but for me the passion lies in the liberating effect of being exposed to ideas, places, and people (past and present) who have shaped human endeavor over the centuries. If you can work to pass that along to future generations, is there any better calling?

Hibel: We know that higher education has changed dramatically over the years in many ways. In what ways do you continue to see it evolve in the future?

Middleton: This raises a question in my mind about the nature of the timeline. In the short to intermediate term (up to 10 years) I think we will continue to be a stressed industry because the model that worked so very well for most of the last half century is broken. It needs to be changed and there is as of yet no consensus on how and at what pace. I think the drive for more efficient use of resources, for abandoning things we have done historically when they no longer matter (or matter less) either to our students or to society, and the creation of new programs to meet our current needs as a country are three issues that will focus our attention in the next decade. Further out, clearly we will need to think of higher education not as a commodity but as an investment in human capital, the most important capital there is. That investment will come from a variety of sources, but in the end the biggest player will be government.

Hibel: What are you most concerned about for the future of higher education?

Middleton: That the needed reforms and changes will take too long to accomplish.

Hibel: What advice would you give to faculty members who may be considering a change to an administrative leadership position? How do they know if they are prepared for the change, or if the role is a fit for their natural talents and skills?

Middleton: I slipped into administration accidentally. Ever since, my career has been essentially shaped by a series of accidental opportunities that came my way, each of them with slightly more responsibility than its predecessor, and each of them giving me an opportunity to do something I cared deeply about on a larger scale so I could make a bigger difference in the life of the institutions where I served. My advice to faculty members reflects this experience. It is this: find ways to work outside your own personal career track in which you can take what you know and what you care deeply about and help transform the institution in that one area of activity. For me, it began with the quality of freshmen life and putting learning at the core of that experience. All else followed.

Hibel: As a leader, what did you expect from your staff in order to fulfill the institution’s mission?

Middleton: I expected them to work hard, to collaborate with each other to accomplish more than we could if we worked alone in parallel, and to be smart in striving for excellence throughout the institution. Also to have fun, for if there is no pleasure in the thing itself for you, then you should go somewhere else or do something else, as you will not be effective in the long run.

Hibel: In 2010, you were one of the founding members of the LGBTQ Presidents in Higher Education association. What was the goal of forming this association and what is the importance of its existence?

Middleton: Our initial goal was simple: as we began to grow in numbers, which is a phenomenon of the current century – not the last. We sought to support each other and to strive together to be the best presidents we could possibly be as a result. If you look at the broad sweep of the history of higher education, it can be understood as the expansion of opportunity over time to more and more groups of people. LGBTQ people have always been on campuses, of course, but the great social movement of LGBTQ rights has enabled members of our community to contribute to higher education in ways thought impossible over most of the timeline of my personal career. We needed a conference to begin deep and serious thinking about what this means for the future of higher education as well as for ourselves personally.

Hibel: Please share your observations and thoughts about how colleges and universities have progressed with LGBTQ communities over your 50 years and how you hope they progress over the next 50 years.

Middleton: The story isn’t always such a happy one and it certainly wasn’t just the lesser-known institutions that discriminated against us openly and in every way imaginable. Right now the record is more mixed and depends upon geographic factors more than sometimes meets the eye. But there is progress and things are generally better if “better” means that we have more opportunity and we can thereby spend time and energy in doing our jobs well and less on hiding who we are for fear of retribution. In another 50 years, and preferably fewer, I think we will see a time when people look back on this period as an antiquated time when just telling your mom that you are gay was considered an act of supreme courage (and it was, too). People will wonder at our societal myopia on these matters.

Hibel: This past June, the conference ” LGBTQ Leaders in Higher Education: Shaping Our Futures” was held. What were some of the outcomes from the event as well as future indicatives planned?

Middleton: Perhaps the best way to talk about the outcomes is to note that our second conference is in the planning stages because there is so much need out there for LGBTQ professionals in all parts of the academy to communicate about how to do our jobs most effectively. It really does matter that you are one of us in the sense that we do see things through the lenses of our own experiences and that helps shape our effectiveness as individuals just as it does for women, minorities of all descriptions, and straight white males. For me the best thing about the conference in June was that we did it and in so doing brought together people from all over the country in all parts of higher education in a way that nobody present had ever imagined possible even five years ago. And we had fun, too, as we marched in the Chicago Pride Parade proudly displaying signs saying who we are.

Hibel: You achieved much success during your tenure at Roosevelt with such accomplishments as implementing a flat-rate tuition program, hiring a record number of full-time faculty, and creating a College of Pharmacy. What are your strategies for the successful implementation of goals?

Middleton: The key thing about the success of any president is that the actions taken reflect in the end the aspirations of the community for itself. I don’t think it is useful for us, as presidents, to spend too much time trying to discern what items of your many accomplishments will turn out to be the most important over time. In my thirteen years at Roosevelt I always tried to support ideas that others had and to shape them to common purposes so that the dreams of the community would inform and define our work on an annual basis. When you compile a list of those actions and ask what is different today compared to 2002 when I began, it’s amazing how many there are. But I’ll leave it to the professional historians down the road to assess what was done well and what maybe not so well. I’m sure that there will be examples of both when that story is told.

Hibel: What advice do you have for current or future higher ed leaders regarding “lessons learned” in your career?

Middleton: It’s pretty simple, really. Work hard for the betterment of your institution, take pleasure in and celebrate the successes of its people, keep in mind that even a bad idea at some level has a kernel of truth and opportunity embedded in it if you just look closely enough, and remember that you are the steward of the institution while you are there and that soon enough another steward will be hired to replace you, so leave it in as good a shape as you can when you go.

Hibel: How are you adjusting to retirement? How do you plan on staying connected to academia?

Middleton: I’m in another one of those accidental opportunities I mentioned earlier. When Mayor Emanuel asked me to chair the Board of Trustees of the City Colleges of Chicago, I was truly surprised. I’m learning so much in this position, which for the record is unpaid, and I feel that it is the next step in that broader career to date that has given and continues to give my life meaning and overall joy. I am also enjoying the fact that I can do things that I have never done before in my life, such as take in a Wednesday afternoon performance at a local theatre and travelling to another city to celebrate my birthday which is in September when I have always been in school since I was 5 years old. And I’m spending lots of time with my partner, John, doing things that we both love to do and now can because he is retired, too. This is true freedom and I’m loving it!


All opinions expressed by Charles Middleton are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of HigherEdJobs.



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