"You begin as a faculty member," explains Judith Block McLaughlin, a professor of the Graduate School of Education and a scholar of the college presidency. "Typically the route is through department chair to a dean or a provost and into the presidency. With each appointment comes a wider range of leadership experiences."

Three of the seven Ivy League schools with permanent presidents have a leader who headed at least one university in the past. One example is George E. Rupp, former president of Rice and current president of Columbia.

McLaughlin says that there is a common thread running through his career at the two institutions.

"I think there is loyalty to a particular place and there's also loyalty to a particular kind of place...to institutional mission or culture or a set of values," she said. "Rice and Columbia, of course, have enormous differences. There are also things that George Rupp very much believes in that are present in both places."

Four of the seven permanent presidents of Ivy League schools attended the university they now head.

"In an earlier day, that anyone would be president who was not an alumni would be out of the question," says David Riesman '31 who once covered President A. Lawrence Lowell, Class of 1877, for The Crimson.

But even in the age of nation-wide searches, internal candidates are often selected. Stanford's new president, John L. Hennessy has worked at the university since 1977.

"You do a national search but end up with a person in the office next door," McLaughlin says. "And there may be very good reasons for that. You have a chance to evaluate your own local talent."