WASHINGTON – Purdue University President Mitch Daniels didn’t have the traditional academic background for his job when he stepped into the new role hours after leaving the governor’s office in 2013.
But he did have another asset.
“Calluses,” Daniels said about the tough skin he had acquired during his years in public office.
“If you spend some time in public positions you learn to let certain things go,” Daniels said during a discussion at a higher education conference. “You can’t answer every outrageous, counterfactual, insulting thing somebody says.”
Janet Napolitano, the former Arizona governor and secretary of the Department of Homeland Security who now heads the University of California, said she brought a perspective to the university presidency about what’s really a crisis.
“If I make a mistake in this job, nobody dies,” she said.
Daniels and Napolitano were asked by the American Council on Education to talk at the group’s annual meeting about their unconventional resumes.
Almost nine out of 10 college presidents have faculty experience, according to University of Massachusetts President Robert L. Caret, who moderated the discussion.
“Coming from outside is not the norm and has never been the norm,” Caret said.