Alecia DeCoudreaux poses with a graduate of Mills College
in Oakland, California, where she serves as the college’s president.
23
on leadership and management skills honed at Lilly to head a team of Mills College constituents in drafting the school’s next strategic plan. “My time at Lilly was not only spent practicing
law,” DeCoudreaux says, “but also overseeing the work of others. As a college president, I ferret out facts, communicate decisions, and help others work to their optimal levels.” She and her counterparts are well aware of col-
lege faculty skepticism over whether presidents from outside academia can fully integrate. Among other things, they fear these presidents can’t comprehend the rigors accompanying scholarly research. Some of the presidents, meanwhile, acknowledge that the learning curves of outsiders depend upon the type of college they lead. Yet Rutgers University-Camden Chancellor Wendell
Pritchett, an Ivy League veteran and former lawyer and professor, says, “T e truth is, most faculty have not had enough experience with management issues to be successful college presidents. Some lawyers have advantages over some professors.”
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Pritchett suggests attorneys interested in college
presidencies focus on gaining management experience within the legal profession. “I know lots of lawyers,” he says, “and can picture some of them succeeding as college presidents because they have strong manage- ment skills, the ability to identify priorities, and they’re willing to organize people around those priorities.” Bowdoin College trustees found such an executive
in 2001 when they tapped career lawyer Barry Mills for the presidency, a position he still holds. Mills had been deputy presiding partner at the New York offi ce of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where his 22-year practice revolved around real estate, corporate fi nance, and large-scale transactions. As Mills settled into his new surroundings in
Brunswick, Maine, one of his early speeches to Bowdoin stakeholders examined similarities between the organizational cultures of the college and the law fi rm. “Building consensus was a large part of what I was trained to do, both in the transactions we worked on and in running our fi rm,” he said at the time. “I had to listen to what people were really saying and fi gure
MAY/JUNE 2013 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®
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