Reciprocal Relationships: AJCU Presidents & Rectors

This study reviews literature pertinent to the changing landscape of leadership at member institutions of higher education in the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) with a view toward revisioning the relationship between presidents and Jesuit superiors. The purpose of this article encourages efforts to foster Jesuit mission and identity during a shift toward increased lay leadership. The research cites related insights from previous studies and mandates from documents of the Society of Jesus that together point to the need for reimagining leadership. The study underscores the importance of fostering relationships of mutuality and reciprocity to ensure the sustaining of the Jesuit mission and identity of AJCU institutions. Finally, the authors conclude with specific recommendations exhorting the enactment of actions that have been recommended or in development during the last twenty years, a period in which a leadership paradigm shift has occurred with the appointment of lay presidents at a majority of the AJCU institutions