Why higher education needs fewer performances of change and more sustainable efforts toward transformation.
College presidents are under extraordinary pressure to prove that their institutions are changing and adapting. Enrollment patterns are shifting, public confidence is uneven, artificial intelligence is remaking work and learning, and the financial model for many colleges is strained. In that environment, innovation becomes not just a strategy but a signal to trustees, legislators, donors, faculty, students and communities that the institution is awake to the moment.
However, signaling change is not the same as changing. Too often, campuses lead with “innovation theater: visible activity that looks bold from the outside but leaves the core business of teaching, learning, student support, workforce alignment and institutional sustainability largely untouched. In fact, innovation theater is financially and culturally costly to a college. For presidents, the challenge is not to avoid innovation rhetoric altogether. It is to make sure that rhetoric is backed by disciplined priorities, stakeholder buy-in, operational capacity and measurable value.
To many leaders, innovation theater is seductive because it produces motion. A new task force, a renamed office, a glossy strategic plan, a design-thinking workshop, a pilot program, or a campuswide summit on the future of learning can create energy quickly. These efforts may also be sincere. Presidents often launch them because they see real threats and real opportunities, yet visible activity can become a substitute for hard institutional work when it is disconnected from institutional stakeholders.
The danger is especially acute in higher education because institutions are complex, consensus-driven and tradition-rich. A president can announce innovation faster than an institution can absorb it. Without shared ownership, the initiative becomes associated with the leader rather than embedded in the institution. When the president leaves, the initiative often leaves too.
Innovation theater revolves around changing the appearance of the institution and its work rather than its performance. By contrast, real innovation changes the institution’s capacity to serve students, the workforce and strategic partners. Often, these innovations are not the headlines, but the grassroots efforts that improve learning, retention, completion and career pathways that result in good-paying jobs.
I am reminded of the major change then-Ohio Governor John Kasich championed in 2011, which brought about a 100% performance-based funding model to all public colleges and universities. The elasticity and competition built into the formula did not allow for shortcuts, rather creating opportunities for institutions to rethink their systems and the way they served students. Presidents who desired an easy path or quick win, i.e., innovation theater, were not going to make headway in realizing additional resources. The real work to ensure increases in graduation rates, momentum and student course completion had to be authentic and systemic.
A campus may be performing innovation theater when the most celebrated activities are events rather than outcomes, when pilots never scale, when new programs are announced without clear student demand or employer validation, when faculty and staff experience innovation as another layer of work rather than a better way to work, or when temporary enthusiasm rather than recurring resources fund the initiative.
Presidents can turn innovation from theater into transformation by taking an honest assessment of the issues they face, such as AI’s short and long-term impacts, and being transparent with the board of trustees, faculty, staff and students about these challenges and how to collectively address them (rather than grabbing headlines for a one-off performance). This small yet dynamic shift moves innovation from performance to purpose.
Name the institutional problem clearly
Innovation should be tied to a concrete challenge such as adult learner access, first-year retention, workforce alignment, transfer efficiency, student belonging or financial sustainability.
Connect innovation to the budget
If an initiative matters, it should eventually appear in resource allocation, staffing, policy and incentives, not just in speeches.
Build coalitions, including shared governance systems and employers, before branding the work
Trustees, faculty, staff, students, employers and community partners should help shape the initiative before it becomes a slogan, an announcement, then a quickly forgotten effort assigned to the dustbin of initiative fatigue.
Measure value, not volume
The number of pilots, workshops or press releases is less important than evidence of improved learning, completion, affordability, employment outcomes or operational effectiveness.
Plan for succession from the beginning
Real innovation can survive the president who announced it because it the institution, not a single office or personality, owns it.
The president’s most important innovation role may not be inventing the next big idea. It may be integrating the institution around a few ideas that will demonstrate impact. Start with internal collaboration, as our own silos across the institution are often roadblocks to quiet but meaningful change for our students. It also means resisting the temptation to chase every new trend with equal urgency.
In an era of artificial intelligence, demographic change, political scrutiny and public skepticism, presidents will be expected to demonstrate that their colleges are adapting. The institutions that succeed will not be those with the loudest innovation language. They will be those that make disciplined choices, learn quickly, scale what works, stop what does not and keep student and community values at the center of their work. The president really and truly should be the chief integrator, not the chief announcer, and leave the performance on the theater stage, where it belongs.