Leading with Head, Heart, and Humanity: Brian Rosenberg, PhD (Part 1)

A former English professor, Brian Rosenberg, PhD, has always drawn leadership lessons from his favorite novelist, Charles Dickens. The primary lesson, he says, is "not to allow bureaucracy to take away your humanity." Dickens eyed the bureaucracies of his day, including universities, suspiciously. During Dr. Rosenberg's 17-year run as President of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, he often did the same, making it a point to "never lose sight of the fact that I was a human being and the people I was working with were human beings." If that meant breaking the rules now and again, so be it. "I learned from Dickens that you shouldn’t allow your role to trap you," he continues. "As he would put it: Think with your heart and head." 

Dr. Rosenberg has been characterized as anti-establishment before and during his presidency, in his current role as a Visiting Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and as a Senior Advisor to the African Leadership University. His 2023 book, Whatever It Is, I'm Against It, suggests his contrarian nature. In this podcast with WittKieffer Senior Advisor Elsa Núñez, EdD, herself a former president, he reflects upon the forces that have shaped his views on leadership and higher education. He explains his predilection to voice opposition to the status quo and weigh in on social controversies, hoping to set an example. "How can we tell our students to be vocal and change agents if we refuse to be vocal ourselves?" he asks. They also talk about what U.S. and European institutions can learn from global institutions who "do more with less" and readily encourage entrepreneurism, he says.