I recently finished Peril and Promise: College Leadership in Turbulent Times by Beverly Daniel Tatum, and I’ve been sitting with it because it names, with striking clarity, the storm we are all leading through right now. Tatum writes with the authority of someone who has stood in the eye of that storm as a college president, yet her voice is measured, hopeful, and deeply human. She doesn’t glamorize leadership; she demystifies it. She reminds us that turbulence isn’t the interruption to our work; it is the work. And the real question is how we will show up inside it.
What resonated most is her insistence that leadership must be anchored in values, not in reacting to headlines. She chronicles how political polarization, attacks on DEI, campus protests, board tensions, and financial strain have reshaped the presidency, shortening tenures and hollowing out trust. Yet she resists cynicism. Instead, she urges us to clarify our mission, communicate transparently, and create predictable structures for navigating crisis. In a world addicted to hot takes, she makes a case for thoughtful steadiness and for leading with both courage and care.
Reading this as a higher education leader, I felt affirmed and challenged. Tatum offers a blueprint for governance rooted in principle rather than personality: align early with your board, brief them often, establish protocols before the flashpoint, and narrate your decisions with consistency. She frames protest management, free speech disputes, and DEI backlash not as unsolvable crises but as opportunities to model the values our institutions claim to uphold. It is practical without being prescriptive, and it reminds me that our job is not to avoid turbulence but to help our communities stay upright through it.
As an international educator, I also read between the lines. The silence around immigration is telling. The climate that shapes our work is shifting daily: stricter visa adjudication, narrower travel windows, more scrutiny at borders, growing geopolitical tensions. These pressures rarely make the headline reel, yet they profoundly shape our students’ lives. Tatum’s call for anticipatory leadership fits this work exactly: embedding international voices into risk planning, building travel signature clinics before breaks, publishing clear guidance, and framing immigration compliance as an act of care, not fear. Our students need to see that we are prepared to stand steady for them.
And as a woman leader, especially one often called to translate these complexities for colleagues who may not see the depth of the situation, this book felt personal. So much of our labor, soothing, explaining, holding space, connecting dots, remains invisible until something breaks. Tatum gives language to that unseen work. She models how to set boundaries around it, how to lead without becoming the institution’s emotional shock absorber, and how to center principles so the work isn’t dependent on personality. Her tone is calm, yet it hums with conviction. It reminded me that empathy and evidence are not opposites. They are the twin rails of credible leadership.
Tatum’s book does not hand out easy answers. It offers something rarer: a compass. It invites us to slow down, anchor to mission, and prepare for the inevitable storms with clarity, humility, and hope. For those of us navigating the intersection of higher education, immigration, and belonging, especially as women and as leaders, this is the kind of guide we need on our desks, not our shelves.