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Lyon College President Keeps An Eye on Mission, Sustainability

5 min read

Joseph King became the 18th president of Lyon College when he was named to the post in late 2016 after previously serving as senior advisor to the president of Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia. The private college in Batesville held King’s investiture last month.

A Texas native, King is co-author, with Brian Mitchell, of the book “How to Run a College,” with their follow-up, “The Creative Generation” soon to be published by Stanford Press. Heading toward the end of his first full year as Lyon president, King talked to Arkansas Business about his vision for the college, the challenges he faces and what’s surprised him most about his new job.

AB: What was attractive about the presidency at Lyon? 

JK: The faculty had won CASE/Carnegie Arkansas Professor of the Year 14 times, far more than any other institution in the state. The student to faculty ratio was 12:1. Student outcomes were excellent, with 98 percent employed or in graduate school within six months of graduation. Student debt was manageable, with an average of $22,000. The campus was beautiful, with very little deferred maintenance in the academic core. It was in a lovely town, Batesville, in the foothills of the Ozarks. Also, Independence County had just adopted a very progressive,10-year strategic plan.

Can you describe your big picture vision for the college? 

Increase the size of the student body to between 1,100 and 1,250. Considering the College’s current and historic enrollment [of 700], that would be a substantial change. … Develop a more robust, interdisciplinary liberal arts academic program, enhanced by opportunities for experiential learning and a culture that fosters creativity and innovation. … Foster a diverse and inclusive residential community focused on educating the whole person. In that vein, we will be more intentional about recruiting and retaining students, faculty, and staff with diverse backgrounds and outlooks. … Build a broad-based and fully engaged college commonwealth including strong alumni connectivity and local and regional partnerships. We will enhance alumni relations through deliberate and focused marketing, multigenerational events and mentoring programs.

Were any specific objectives, goals, benchmark achievements, etc. stressed to you when you took the job? In other words, what things do you feel you were brought in to do? 

Clearly, I was brought in to focus on and achieve sustainability. That includes financial sustainability, but I think the board of trustees’ interest goes beyond that to environmental, societal, etcetera. Like most private colleges and universities, Lyon has struggled with sustainability. Our strategic plan addresses that struggle head-on. I have said that we know that it is a success when those existential worries are behind us.

How do you personally measure a school’s success? 

First and foremost, I look at whether the school is being true to its mission. At their core, colleges are true mission-driven organizations. I would not consider an institution a success if it achieved large financial surpluses by sacrificing or betraying its mission. So, sustainability involves being true to mission while also being good stewards. It is a delicate balance especially with rising employer costs (for example, rising health insurance premiums) and a changing marketplace (for example, stagnant median family incomes).

What, if anything, has taken you by surprise or impressed you about the job or the institution so far? 

I have never been at a college more committed to mentoring. It is clear by the way that faculty, staff, and coaches approach students and their learning process, both inside and outside the classroom. I was at the senior party early this week. When faculty gave their toasts to the seniors, that were filled with emotion. It just showed how much they genuinely care about each and every student. 

How do your own educational experiences influence your thoughts on higher education? 

I attended a small, private liberal arts college, Southwestern University, in Georgetown, Texas. I went on to graduate school at the University of Washington. So, I know how different 1,200 undergraduates is from 30,000. I truly believe that liberal arts colleges do something very special. It is unfortunate that only 2 percent of students in U.S. higher education get to experience it.

How does your background in technology and entrepreneurship affect your approach to your job and higher education in general? 

On the technology side, I think it makes me more conservative. I know how expensive it is and how often it fails to achieve promised results. In higher education, I think it is useful to think of technology as a utility not unlike electricity. It is critical to success but not an end in and of itself. As for entrepreneurship, I know from experience that a successful entrepreneur is more of a risk assessor than a risk taker. … I do bring that approach to my work in the academy. 

What are the biggest challenges facing higher education and residential colleges today? 

In general, I think the greatest challenges are financial. While median family income has increased slightly in the past year or two, it has essentially remained flat for the past two decades. Costs, on the other hand, have galloped ahead. The Higher Education Price Index (HEPI), basically the CPI for higher ed, increased 3.7 percent last year — 6 percent for fringe benefits.

Biography

W. Joseph King

Background: With a Ph.D. in human-computer interaction from the University of Washington and a B.A. in computer science and experimental psychology from Southwestern University in his native Texas, King has held a number of positions in academia and is a proponent of technology and entrepreneurship. 

He has been executive director of the National Institute of Technology in Liberal Education, vice president of innovation at Southwestern and executive director of Connexions at Rice University in Texas. 

King is on the board of storytelling app maker Grafiti, is a former research scientist as well as former chief scientist of networking technology company F5 Networks. His wife Leigh is a lawyer and legal scholar who teaches at Lyon and he has a son, Harris Chambers, 21, and a daughter, Maddie, 15. Between his presidency and book-in-progress “How to Lead a College,” King hopes to squeeze in time for hiking and fly fishing.

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