Peril and Promise: College Leadership in Turbulent Times -- Beverly Daniel Tatum, Hardcover

In this "timely and critically important book" (Eddie S. Glaude Jr.), a former college president and bestselling author offers leadership lessons for today's troubled campuses

Higher education is under assault from all sides. Scandals, protests, and dramatic resignations dominate the news cycle, and the pressure has grown so severe that the average tenure of university presidents has fallen to less than six years. Even so, Peril and Promise insists, American universities provide the solutions to the ignorance and division that plague our society--but only if wise, courageous leaders step up.

Blending insights from social science with many years of experience as a college president at Spelman and Mount Holyoke Colleges, Beverly Daniel Tatum celebrates the power of leadership to make higher education a force for good. Alongside an unflinching look at the financial challenges, political attacks, and social problems that besiege today's college campuses, she offers real-life leadership examples of institutions that have overcome the steepest odds and produced real transformation in ideas, student bodies, and society at large.

At once conversational and contemplative, Peril and Promise reckons with the complexities of higher education in our time, while exhorting future leaders to take up the mantle and chart a path forward for our campuses and country.

Author: Beverly Daniel Tatum
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 09/02/2025
Pages: 384
Binding Type: Hardcover
Size: 9.50h x 6.25w x 1.17d
ISBN: 9781541606616

About the Author
Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD, is president emerita of Spelman College. She served as the ninth president of Spelman from 2002-2015. Her visionary leadership as president was recognized in 2013 with the Carnegie Academic Leadership Award. In 2014 she received the Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology, the highest honor presented by the American Psychological Association. The author of four books, including the New York Times-bestselling Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, she lives in Atlanta, Georgia.