About James

Institutional change in higher education can seem impossible. And change is certainly not easy, given the challenges inherent in balancing mission and market forces within the shared governance structures of higher education. But the faith that US society has long had in colleges and universities is increasingly at risk, and we who care about the well-being of colleges and universities need to know how to create and implement change across the enterprise. 

James Shulman has led institutional change efforts as an operating CEO of an organization that provided collective solutions to digital transformation for over 2,000 institutions, as a foundation executive, and as a trustee of higher education institutions. His 2023 book, The Synthetic University was praised by Stanford’s Rob Reich as ”essential reading for university leaders, educational entrepreneurs, and philanthropists.” Louis Menand wrote that his earlier book, The Game of Life; College Sports and Educational Values (co-authored with William G. Bowen) “may be one of the most important books on higher education published in the last twenty years."

For over thirty years, he has worked with faculty, staff, and administrators throughout higher education and philanthropy to illuminate difficult policy questions, reconcile diverse constituents, and navigate the narrow paths that make institutional change possible.