Columbia's president, no stranger to complex challenges, walks tightrope on student protests

Columbia University president Minouche Shafik is no stranger to navigating complex international issues, having worked at some of the world’s most prominent global financial institutions.

At the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, for example, she tackled both the European debt crisis and the Arab Spring.

It remains to be seen, however, if her experience with world conflicts has sufficiently equipped her to navigate the thorny challenges she faces amid ongoing student protests over the Israel-Hamas war.

“The reason you protest is to call attention to an issue,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education. “And you do that by challenging the normal order of things. It’s not a problem to be solved, but a tension to be managed.”

The task before her — to balance the demands of students, faculty and politicians — is also a reflection of just how complex governing universities has become in this day and age, when college footprints have grown ever larger, observers say. And it echoes the experience of a growing number of university leaders who, like Shafik, come from nonacademic backgrounds.