Leading without the script: How a first‐gen president rewrites what higher ed can be

When Dr. Susan R. Burns left the suburbs of Topeka, Kansas, for college, she wasn’t following a well‐trodden family path. She was the third daughter in a tight‐knit Midwestern family but the first to leave home for higher education. “I had no idea what I was doing,” she said. “I was a good student … and I knew more school meant more money, so I was just trying to get through school fast.”