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LEGENDS AND LESSONS with Dr. Sanford Shugart

A discussion between Leadership Managing

Editor Rose Marie Sloan and Dr. Sanford Shugart,
President of Valencia College.

RECOGNIZING A LEADERSHIP LEGEND

Dr. Sanford Shugart, known as “Sandy” to many, is the President
of Valencia College, located in greater Orlando, Florida, and has
served as such since 2000.
Serving some 70,000 students per year, Valencia is known for
high rates of graduation, transfer, and job placement and has
become something of a national laboratory for best practices
in learning-centered education. It is one of the most celebrated
community colleges in America, winner of the frst Aspen Prize
for Excellence.
Prior to Valencia, Dr. Shugart served as President of North
Harris College and as Vice President and Chief Academic Ofcer
of the North Carolina Community College System. He earned
his Ph.D. in Teaching and Learning from the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In addition to his career in education, Dr. Shugart is a published
poet and songwriter and author of Leadership in the Crucible of
Work: Discovering the Interior Life of an Authentic Leader.
Leadership Managing Editor, Rose Marie Sloan, interviewed Dr.
Shugart as Valencia College hosted the Chair Academy’s 26
th
Annual International Leadership Conference at the beautiful
Caribe Royale in Orlando, Florida. We are excited to have this
opportunity to share his responses around several leadership,
post-secondary, and conversational issues. You became a senior leader of a large organization at an
early age. In your words, you realized that you were quickly
How did you get involved with the Academy, and why is it “becoming someone you didn’t want to be.” What were you
important for you to stay involved? becoming, and how did you change?
Many years ago, as a young new president, I was convinced that I found that the tools of leadership, tools we have to master to do
the quality of leadership at the chair and dean level was vital to our jobs, were also mastering me. Tis is true of any profession –
the health of the college - but there was very little available to the tools you regularly use, the habits of thought, the underlying
leaders at this level, especially in the community college world. assumptions about others, and so on – shape us over time more
When I shared this with a friend and mentor, Paul Elsner, he than we shape them. And since leadership is the legitimate
suggested I check out this new organization called the Chair exercise of authority, of power, these are the tools that shape us.
Academy. Over the next few years, we sent platoons of leaders to Tis can be very deforming, especially if one is successful. I was
the year-long development program and the annual conferences. becoming arrogant, self-centered, intolerant, and entitled – the
Te results were outstanding. Eventually, I served on the board common characteristics of so many of our leaders ruined on the
of the organization. I am delighted that it continues to fourish. job, so to speak.

LEADERSHIP Vol. 23.1 Spring/Summer 2017 7

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