Leading a campus through crisis: The role of college and university presidents

Author's Biography

Joseph A. Brennan has more than 25 years of experience as a university leader, scholar and teacher. Dr Brennan is one of the most respected voices in higher education marketing. His executive portfolio includes leadership of PR and marketing, communication research and planning, news media relations, advocacy and public affairs, marketing and brand strategy, employee communications, digital and social media, issues management and crisis communications. He has published many professional and peer-reviewed papers and case studies, focusing on emergency communications, college rankings, crisis management and leadership. He contributed to the first major quantitative study of how college students respond to emergency warnings, and he is currently working on a book on how young, diverse presidents are changing higher education leadership practices. Since 2015, Dr Brennan has served as Vice President for Communications and Marketing at the University at Albany — SUNY, where he also holds the rank of Clinical Professor of Business. He is past chair of the Public Relations Society of America’s Counselors to Higher Education section, a national network of some 675 practitioners. He earned the coveted distinction ‘Accredited in Public Relations’, and his work has been recognised with more than 25 professional awards and honours.

Eric K. Stern is a professor at the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cyber-Security at the University at Albany — SUNY. Professor Stern holds a PhD from Stockholm University and a BA from Dartmouth College. He has published extensively in the fields of crisis and emergency management, crisis communication, resilience, security studies, executive leadership, foreign policy analysis and political psychology. He is also affiliated with the Swedish National Center for Crisis Management Research and Training (CRISMART), where he served as Director from 2004 to 2011, and with the Swedish Defense University and the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. Other key areas of interest and expertise include social media and crisis preparedness, post-crisis evaluation and learning, interactive education and instructional design, and case research/teaching methodologies. In addition to his scholarly work, Professor Stern has collaborated closely with many international organisations as well as European, Asian and US government agencies on a wide range of applied research and educational initiatives, including training and exercise development projects.