Linfield President Miles K. Davis on lessons learned during his at-times tumultuous tenure
By Suzanne Stevens – Editor, Portland Business Journal 12/26/2023
Miles K. Davis announced plans in November to step down as President of Linfield University. He'll step down on Jan. 1, the first day on the job for interim President Rebecca Johnson.
Davis led the McMinnville-based school through several strategic initiatives during his tenure, including the $14.5 million acquisition of the 20-acre University of Western States campus and a name change from Linfield College to Linfield University, which allowed the school to expand certain programs and degrees. He also helped secure a $10 million gift to build a new science facility.
Davis' tenure was not without turmoil, with controversies involving the handling of sexual abuse and harassment complaints and the firing of a tenured English professor. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece addressing the controversies, Davis said that "change is hard. And so when you have change, there's resistance."
We checked in with Davis recently to talk about his takeaways from five years in Oregon and what's next. This interview has been edited for length.
=What's on the agenda when you leave Linfield?
I am writing a book called "The Rise and Fall of Higher Education." I'm going to start recording podcasts so you'll see some announcements coming out and we're working with the publishers and producers to get that done. I have been asked to consult on a university that's trying to stand up on the African continent. So there is more for me to do. But most importantly is that I want to be able to spend some time with my family (who are on the East Coast).
=What are you most proud of accomplishing at Linfield?
Well the things that I'm most proud of aren't the things that have made headlines. I'm not sure if proud is the right word, but when I think about it it makes me smile and feel good ... I was hosting faculty my first year here and someone said 'I don't know if you've noticed but we've noticed that our students of color walk a little taller now.' So if my presence in my role made somebody feel better about themselves, and see that what I've accomplished, they can accomplish, I think that's a great start.
=Any regrets?
There are people who believe that I did things either to directly or indirectly attack them. I regret that. You can never change people's opinion about how they feel about you because sometimes neither you nor them are aware of exactly what they're reacting to when you say something, so that is something I regret. ... I think from my perspective I was not as sensitive to some things that apparently are very important to Oregonians and maybe to academia and the field in general (when it comes to) process. My life has been dedicated to outcomes. I have a bias for action. I don't like sitting around talking about things for days on end, particularly if your house is on fire. I don't want to debate on which fire extinguisher to use. But I realize that that's inside of me ... and other people don't see it that way.
=Was your experience in Oregon what you expected when you moved here?
What I came to understand is that there are a lot of things about me that represent something different. The people who have lived in an environment where they've never been around anyone who was like me. And I mean that on multiple levels, whether it's an issue of pigmentation, whether it's my lived experiences.
I didn't realize how challenging it would be for some people to hear me when I said things, or that I wasn't fully aware sometimes of what people were responding to ... that it wasn't just about responding to me because some of the actions, both positive and negative, I was getting were from people who didn't know me. I had the chance to be friends with Jesse Jackson Jr., and one of the things that he said to me is appropriate for the situation.
He said to me that one of the hardest things about being him is that he inherited from his father, Jesse Jackson Sr., both his enemies and his friends, neither of which he has deserved.
=What's your takeaway from that?
You can try to adapt to people and culture, particularly if you're trying to be effective within an organizational context, or in any cultural context. You have to adapt to the culture somewhat. You can show up wanting to be as authentic as you want to be.
However, in certain environments, that authenticity can cause problems for others, and quite frankly, can cause problems for your effectiveness. So you have to understand the environment and context in which you're interacting. As a matter of fact, I was told my strategies would not work because culture eats strategy for lunch. I reject that statement, because sometimes the strategy is to change the culture, but you have to be aware of how it operates and what levers to pull in order to make that happen.
….Closer Look…
Miles K. Davis
Title: President, Linfield University (outgoing)
Previous: Dean of the business school, Shenandoah University in Virginia
What's next: Working on a book: "The Rise and Fall of Higher Education," due in 2025.
