On the Ground: Observations and Recommendations from Chief Financial Officers Currently in Placements
By Jim Martin
This article is the second in a series of pieces about what several ZRG The Registry Members are experiencing on campuses this year. Their responses are aimed at Members who are about to start a new placement, in this case, as a Chief Financial Officer. The previous article in the series appeared in the last issue of Chronicles and focused on Senior Student Affairs Officers; in the issue after this one, we are planning a similar piece addressing the challenges facing Members currently serving as Chief Academic Officers.
For each article, we have interviewed a group of Members presently serving in placements and asked each to provide at least three observations or recommendations for someone about to begin working on a campus, in particular a Member who might not have served as an Interim on a campus for two or even three years.
The first CFO interviewed this time was Carol Kissal, who is the Interim Executive VP and Chief Operating Officer at the University of Delaware:
- Be ready for the impact of Artificial Intelligence and how it could influence or be used to extend the life of the current technical stack at universities – especially in the administrative space. Don’t be oversold on new ERPs; you could put a shiny new Agentic-AI-powered user interface on top of it and forego the upgrade.
- Partnerships are the new shared governance, so be ready to understand how to form them to benefit the entity and not get bogged down with the formal system at universities called shared governance. Partnerships are collaboration arrangements, and shared governance is a formal decision-making structure. Often, the two are not aligned.
- Deferred maintenance can be insurmountable, especially at large older public universities, and you will never get ahead of it, so be innovative and devise plans to assess ways to sell, decommission, and repurpose assets, and to establish a regular cycle to implement that.
Chris Kinsley is currently serving as the Interim Vice President for Administration & Finance at New Mexico State University:
- In my experience, effective budget management is far and away the #1 topic of concern at colleges today; the experienced CFO must be able to go beyond what tools and technology offer to provide genuine fiscal transparency.
- The ability to develop and build positive team dynamics is also a key skill; senior leaders returning to higher education will be surprised by the extent to which managers and supervisors are feeling overwhelmed by the pace of change.
- Wages and benefits costs are significantly higher than just a few years ago, and employee expectations and dynamics are volatile.
Christine Plunkett has served as an Interim CFO and president at several institutions for The Registry. Currently, she is the Interim CFO at Paul Smith’s College in Paul Smith’s, New York:
- I would start with the pervasive use of AI in every aspect of college operations, including internal and external communications, student work, faculty curriculum, presentations, research, and analytical work. I have found it to be very helpful in some cases, and not so much in others.
- Earlier challenges in higher education, such as demographic trends and changing enrollment patterns, have become greatly magnified in recent years. It is nearly impossible for small colleges to maintain a sustainable enrollment level without outside-the-box thinking and actions that are swift and decisive, including partnerships, mergers, grants, and curricular changes.
- Finally, be aware of increasing compliance requirements, including, most recently, new Title VI regulations.
Finally, Larry Bomback, the Interim CFO at Albright College, adds these insights from his campus:
- If you have not been placed on a college campus in the last few years, the biggest change you will notice is the sheer level of uncertainty on every level of management. Enrollment patterns are shifting, demographics are evolving, activism is rising, and institutions face growing regulation and scrutiny. Students and their families now approach college far more transactionally than before. They expect instant responses and tangible value for their investment. Simultaneously, AI is reshaping nearly every aspect of academic and administrative work, amplifying both possibility and disruption. As a result, campus leaders are being forced to make decisions with far less predictability than they are used to.
- Yet, amid the turbulence, a more honest conversation is emerging about market realities: what students are willing to pay for, which programs are truly viable, and what institutions can sustain over time. Boards are more engaged and increasingly willing to absorb criticism from students, alumni, and the press in order to make difficult but necessary calls.
- The upside is that this environment is driving genuine innovation and creative problem‑solving, compelling leaders to confront long‑standing structural challenges that helped create — though did not entirely cause — the current instability. Colleges are rethinking partnerships, academic portfolios, and operating models in ways that almost certainly would not have happened without this pressure.
We would like to thank the four Registry Members interviewed for taking the time to share their thinking during busy weeks on their campuses, and we would like to invite Chronicles readers to keep their eye out for the next installment of “On the Ground.”
On the Ground: Observations and Recommendations from Chief Financial Officers Currently in Placements
By Jim Martin
This article is the second in a series of pieces about what several ZRG The Registry Members are experiencing on campuses this year. Their responses are aimed at Members who are about to start a new placement, in this case, as a Chief Financial Officer. The previous article in the series appeared in the last issue of Chronicles and focused on Senior Student Affairs Officers; in the issue after this one, we are planning a similar piece addressing the challenges facing Members currently serving as Chief Academic Officers.
For each article, we have interviewed a group of Members presently serving in placements and asked each to provide at least three observations or recommendations for someone about to begin working on a campus, in particular a Member who might not have served as an Interim on a campus for two or even three years.
The first CFO interviewed this time was Carol Kissal, who is the Interim Executive VP and Chief Operating Officer at the University of Delaware:
- Be ready for the impact of Artificial Intelligence and how it could influence or be used to extend the life of the current technical stack at universities – especially in the administrative space. Don’t be oversold on new ERPs; you could put a shiny new Agentic-AI-powered user interface on top of it and forego the upgrade.
- Partnerships are the new shared governance, so be ready to understand how to form them to benefit the entity and not get bogged down with the formal system at universities called shared governance. Partnerships are collaboration arrangements, and shared governance is a formal decision-making structure. Often, the two are not aligned.
- Deferred maintenance can be insurmountable, especially at large older public universities, and you will never get ahead of it, so be innovative and devise plans to assess ways to sell, decommission, and repurpose assets, and to establish a regular cycle to implement that.
Chris Kinsley is currently serving as the Interim Vice President for Administration & Finance at New Mexico State University:
- In my experience, effective budget management is far and away the #1 topic of concern at colleges today; the experienced CFO must be able to go beyond what tools and technology offer to provide genuine fiscal transparency.
- The ability to develop and build positive team dynamics is also a key skill; senior leaders returning to higher education will be surprised by the extent to which managers and supervisors are feeling overwhelmed by the pace of change.
- Wages and benefits costs are significantly higher than just a few years ago, and employee expectations and dynamics are volatile.
Christine Plunkett has served as an Interim CFO and president at several institutions for The Registry. Currently, she is the Interim CFO at Paul Smith’s College in Paul Smith’s, New York:
- I would start with the pervasive use of AI in every aspect of college operations, including internal and external communications, student work, faculty curriculum, presentations, research, and analytical work. I have found it to be very helpful in some cases, and not so much in others.
- Earlier challenges in higher education, such as demographic trends and changing enrollment patterns, have become greatly magnified in recent years. It is nearly impossible for small colleges to maintain a sustainable enrollment level without outside-the-box thinking and actions that are swift and decisive, including partnerships, mergers, grants, and curricular changes.
- Finally, be aware of increasing compliance requirements, including, most recently, new Title VI regulations.
Finally, Larry Bomback, the Interim CFO at Albright College, adds these insights from his campus:
- If you have not been placed on a college campus in the last few years, the biggest change you will notice is the sheer level of uncertainty on every level of management. Enrollment patterns are shifting, demographics are evolving, activism is rising, and institutions face growing regulation and scrutiny. Students and their families now approach college far more transactionally than before. They expect instant responses and tangible value for their investment. Simultaneously, AI is reshaping nearly every aspect of academic and administrative work, amplifying both possibility and disruption. As a result, campus leaders are being forced to make decisions with far less predictability than they are used to.
- Yet, amid the turbulence, a more honest conversation is emerging about market realities: what students are willing to pay for, which programs are truly viable, and what institutions can sustain over time. Boards are more engaged and increasingly willing to absorb criticism from students, alumni, and the press in order to make difficult but necessary calls.
- The upside is that this environment is driving genuine innovation and creative problem‑solving, compelling leaders to confront long‑standing structural challenges that helped create — though did not entirely cause — the current instability. Colleges are rethinking partnerships, academic portfolios, and operating models in ways that almost certainly would not have happened without this pressure.
We would like to thank the four Registry Members interviewed for taking the time to share their thinking during busy weeks on their campuses, and we would like to invite Chronicles readers to keep their eye out for the next installment of “On the Ground.”
HIRE AN INTERIM
Searching for an Interim?
Please contact us for more information.
