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Article Title

Geographers as Higher Education Leaders in a Post COVID Environment

Abstract

Higher education leaders in the post COVID environment are faced with ever increasing pressures related to enrollment volatility, demands for new learning paradigms including the impact of artificial intelligence (AI), cost efficiency expectations, and more dramatic external forces and political scrutiny. The complexity of pressures facing higher education leaders is making it more and more challenging to have longer term tenures in top level leadership roles. At the same time undergraduate and graduate students aspiring to have careers in higher education should realize that geographers, based on the core aspects of their discipline and my experiences over many years as a university president, provost and dean, have the breadth of background and experiences that are a conducive for meeting the range of expectations for higher education leaders that extend from themes related to innovation and entrepreneurship to the environment, sustainability and climate change, to diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice, all during a time of a multitude of topics that require a high degree of sensitivity and difficult dialogue.