Newly appointed vice-chancellors often experience a “significant level of shift shock” when they step into the top job, according to a university leader.

Nic Beech, vice-chancellor of the University of Salford, is conducting PhD research on the issue at the UCL Institute of Education. He said that newly appointed executives can find the transition challenging because of the “disjuncture” between perceptions of vice-chancellorships and the reality, combined with the perception that they have “gone to the dark side”. 

Beech, who previously headed Middlesex University, has interview 40 vice-chancellors for his research, and found that many experienced a “significant level of shift shock” upon starting the role. 

“There’s a range of training courses that many people do before getting the job, but actually once you get into the job there’s for many people quite a disconnect between the things that are being learnt beforehand and then the reality of doing the job,” he told a webinar organised by the Centre for Global Higher Education.

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This was often affected by the level of mentorship they had before starting the role, and Beech explained that those in deputy vice-chancellor and provost roles often had a more “straightforward transition” than those coming from faculty pro vice-chancellor roles. Becoming a vice-chancellor at a university of a similar size to their previous employer also led to smoother switches.

Overall, “a real minority” said they had a smooth transition, and one described starting the job as a “real roller-coaster”. 

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One even said that the transition to becoming vice-chancellor was so challenging, “some days I really regret that I [applied for the role], I’ll tell you that honestly now”. They said they still battle “imposter syndrome”, and that they feel like “someone is [going to] march me down the corridor any moment now”.

None of those interviewed said they had any intentions of becoming vice-chancellors at the start of their academic careers, and that they only began considering the position after taking up senior or leadership positions. 

But vice-chancellors can often feel “isolated” in universities, Beech described, as they become the “sole accountable officer for the university” and placed under new scrutiny not experienced by other members of the senior leadership team.

Beech, formerly vice-principal of the University of St Andrews and an ex-provost of the University of Dundee, claimed that leadership was often viewed as a “dirty word” in academia, and that many vice-chancellors said that they had received comments about “going to the dark side” upon entering such positions.

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“For most people, the idea of becoming a vice-chancellor is something that happens quite late in their career, and often not that long before they did become one. But when they became one there was a real disjunction, and the disjunction was a whole-body experience. It’s emotional. You’re being observed. But while that sounds negative, it’s really exciting. People, once they have gone over to the dark side, find out secretly that they really quite like it,” Beech said.

Beech said that completing his PhD had “massively influenced” his approach to his own vice-chancellor role, and has led him to have a greater development role for his senior leadership team as well as “developing a culture which has got learning and enquiry at the heart of everything that we do”. 

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com