Consultants can be necessary evils or welcome saviors.
Presidents and boards should establish guidelines on the appropriate use of these external advisers. Our senior administrators, trustees, deans, and governance bodies serve these needs, but universities often use professional consultants to assess the environment and recommend solutions or new approaches. It can be quite a surprise to analyze expenditures and find out how much we spend on consultants. At a large university, the cost can exceed a million dollars in a busy year. Beyond the routine recurrent services, such as annual financial audits, we incur costs for many other individuals or firms to advise us or to help resolve projects or problems.