Deep Dive: Leading Through Higher Ed’s Fourth Crisis

Mark Putnam

Back in the early 2000s, right after the whole Y2K frenzy settled, I think everyone—myself included—kind of thought we were on the verge of this, you know, massive economic boom. But instead, the dot-com bubble burst. And you could feel it almost immediately—public institutions like the one I worked at started feeling the pinch quickly.

Olivia Carter

Wait, how quickly are we talking here?

Mark Putnam

Oh, it was fast. State funding cuts hit first, tuition revenue projections lagged because families were hesitating—personal finances were shaken—and even philanthropy slowed down. I mean, across the board, there was just this enormous sense of...uncertainty.

Olivia Carter

So, everything felt stuck. What did that look like on, like, a day-to-day level?

Mark Putnam

It was tense. Picture this: you’ve got staff worrying about layoffs, departments shutting down projects midstream, and IT—IT felt like we were walking a real tightrope, not knowing what resource cuts were coming. Then, during all that uncertainty, the CTO calls a meeting. Huge room, everyone packed in. And he just...he walks in, no slides, just a piece of chalk in his hand.

Olivia Carter

Wait, chalk? Like, actual chalkboard chalk?

Mark Putnam

Yeah, actual chalk. It was kind of striking, honestly. But that was his style. No bells or whistles—just clarity. Then he starts writing on the board. Line by line, he maps out the numbers: tuition declines, state budget allocations, discretionary funding. He even showed how much worse it could get if, say, expenses rose unexpectedly.

Olivia Carter

I mean, laying it all out like that...weren’t people just, I don’t know, panicked?

Mark Putnam

You’d think so, right? But no. And that’s the thing—he didn’t sugarcoat anything. He didn’t dramatize either. It was all very matter-of-fact: “Here’s what we’re dealing with. Here’s how it’s going to ripple through the university. Here’s how we manage it.” Vacancy holds, spending freezes, slowdowns on non-essential projects—logical, deliberate steps. People came in that room nervous, some even scared. But they left—

Olivia Carter

With what? Hope?

Mark Putnam

No, not quite hope. Call it clarity. A shared understanding. They might not have loved the answers, but they had a plan—tangible next steps, something to rally around.

Olivia Carter

That’s wild. So the whole chalkboard thing actually worked?

Mark Putnam

It wasn’t the chalk, Olivia. It was the tone. He didn’t have all the answers, but he modeled calmness. No spinning, no false assurances—just honesty. In moments like that, people don’t need miracles—they need to know their leadership is steady. They need reality, not rhetoric.

Olivia Carter

And you were in that room, weren’t you? Watching all this unfold?

Mark Putnam

I was. It stuck with me for years. That meeting showed me that leadership in a crisis isn’t about avoiding the hard truths; it’s about helping people face forward, together.

Olivia Carter

Wow. It’s kind of crazy how something so simple can make that much impact.

Mark Putnam

Yeah, it is. But when uncertainty is the only thing around you, sometimes simplicity is what people need the most.

Olivia Carter

So, that was the dot-com crash you faced first. But that was just the beginning, wasn’t it? You’ve handled, what, three more major crises since then?

Mark Putnam

Yeah, that's right. The second one came with the Great Recession in 2008. That hit higher ed in ways we hadn’t really seen before. State funding just...dried up. Public institutions bore the brunt of it, but even private universities, places with billion-dollar endowments, weren’t immune.

Olivia Carter

And IT? How did it—how did you—manage during that?

Mark Putnam

It wasn’t easy. Frankly, we were forced into survival mode. Centralizing services, consolidating whatever we could. Cloud adoption took off, but, you know, not because we were trying to modernize strategically. It was more like, "This is what we can afford." Budgets got slashed. People were laid off. It felt like every decision traded short-term cuts for long-term complexity.

Olivia Carter

Yikes. I can’t imagine how that must’ve felt for the teams. Burnout must’ve been a huge deal, right?

Mark Putnam

Oh, absolutely. And it wasn’t just from overwork—it was from this creeping sense of, well, helplessness. When your resources are stripped down to the studs, and you’re asked to "do more with less," it feels like you’re fighting uphill constantly. And it’s exhausting.

Olivia Carter

But it didn’t stop there—because then came COVID.

Mark Putnam

Exactly. With COVID, suddenly overnight—literally overnight—it was all remote. Teaching, operations, research. Everything. The scramble to scale up IT infrastructure, staff training, virtual collaboration tools—it was monumental. And at the same time, we were dealing with our own fears, our families, you know? It was...a lot.

Olivia Carter

That sounds like chaos. But institutions did pull it off, right? Somehow?

Mark Putnam

They did. IT teams performed, honestly, heroic work to keep things running. But the cost was steep. Burnout skyrocketed, and, once again, the reinvestment we hoped for after the dust settled—well, it didn’t really come. We pivoted because we had to, not because we were ready.

Olivia Carter

And that brings us to now. Crisis number four. What's different this time?

Mark Putnam

The difference is...accumulation. These past crises haven’t existed in isolation—they’ve layered on top of each other. This time, it’s federal policies. Caps on indirect cost reimbursements, potential endowment taxes. Even well-funded research institutions are now facing cuts in the double digits. For IT, that means we’re talking core services, not just peripheral systems.

Olivia Carter

That’s brutal. It’s like there’s no room to breathe, no time to recover from one crisis before the next hits.

Mark Putnam

Exactly. For the generation of IT leaders who’ve endured all four of these waves, it’s reshaped what leadership even means. It’s no longer just about tech strategies or operational efficiencies. It’s about emotional resilience—keeping your team connected to the mission when everything feels uncertain. That’s the real challenge now.

Olivia Carter

And the fact that so many are still showing up? Still leading, still trying?

Mark Putnam

That’s no small thing, Olivia. It’s not just resilience—it’s determination. A lot of these folks, they’re not in it for the accolades or even the technology. They’re in it because they believe in the mission of higher education, and that’s what keeps them going.

Olivia Carter

Mark, hearing all of that—the resilience, the determination—it’s inspiring, but also daunting. For leaders stepping into this kind of layered uncertainty, where do they even begin? How do they make sure they keep moving forward without freezing under the weight of it all?

Mark Putnam

It starts with clarity, Olivia. One of the most important things a leader can do in times of crisis is to name the fear. You’ve gotta put it out there—state the facts, even the uncertainties. If you don’t, people will fill in the gaps themselves, and trust me, their imagination often makes the situation far worse than it actually is.

Olivia Carter

So, you’re saying honesty is step one? Even if it’s bad news?

Mark Putnam

Especially if it’s bad news. Candor builds trust. Teams don’t need sugarcoating; they need to believe their leaders are steady and transparent. Think about that dot-com crash example from earlier. It wasn’t the pretty picture we wanted to see, but it was the clarity we needed.

Olivia Carter

Okay, so you’ve got clarity. But, I mean, these situations are so chaotic. How do you stop your team from just... spiraling out?

Mark Putnam

That’s where shrinking the timeline comes in. Long-term planning can paralyze people in moments of crisis. Instead, focus on the next ninety days—what’s actionable, what’s within your control. You give your team the chance to achieve small, tangible wins, and that starts to rebuild momentum. And momentum—it creates hope.

Olivia Carter

So it’s like breaking the problem into chunks, right? Short-term goals to keep the boat moving forward?

Mark Putnam

Exactly. And trust me, it works. The accomplishments may seem small, but collectively they remind people that, even in uncertainty, they can still make progress.

Olivia Carter

But part of me wonders... what about burnout? And I don’t just mean overwork—I mean when people feel stuck, like there’s no way out?

Mark Putnam

Ah, burnout. That’s a big one. Leaders have to stay human. People don’t burn out from hard work alone—they burn out from helplessness. You need to listen, really listen, to what’s going on with your team. Offer support, create opportunities for real conversations. It could be as simple as telling someone, “Look, take a break.” It’s small, but it adds up. Empathy isn’t just nice—it’s necessary leadership strategy.

Olivia Carter

Wait, so you’re saying emotional support is, like, part of the job?

Mark Putnam

Absolutely. Empathy keeps your team together when everything else feels like it’s falling apart. And that’s tied to another key principle: keeping the mission front and center. When resources tank, it’s easy to feel like the work doesn’t matter or it’s, I don’t know, transactional. But the greater purpose hasn’t changed, Olivia. Infrastructure still supports students, classrooms still depend on systems uptime. You’ve gotta connect the dots for your team—help them see the impact of their work.

Olivia Carter

So it’s not just about surviving the storm, but reminding people why the work still matters?

Mark Putnam

Exactly. Mission is fuel. It’s what keeps people moving forward, even when the road ahead looks foggy. But there’s one more piece to this playbook—the importance of being the calm.

Olivia Carter

When you say “calm,” do you mean, like, pretending everything’s fine?

Mark Putnam

No, no—that’s performative and undermines trust. Calm is about presence. It’s modeling steadiness, not pretending. When a leader enters the room, their tone, their posture, their pacing—it all communicates. You don’t need every answer, but you do need to project steadiness. Anxiety spreads fast, Olivia. But so does calm.

Olivia Carter

Wow. So all of this—it’s way more than just strategy. This is about, like, how you show up as a leader at your core.

Mark Putnam

That’s exactly it. Over years, through all these crises, these principles aren’t just management theories. They’re survival strategies—for your team and, honestly, for yourself.

Olivia Carter

And they’ve worked for you? Even through all the chaos?

Mark Putnam

They have. Again and again. It’s what makes the difference in bringing people through the uncertainty intact.

Olivia Carter

Mark, hearing you talk about how these principles have guided you through chaos—it’s clear this goes beyond just IT management or higher education. We’re talking about something far more universal, aren’t we?

Mark Putnam

I’d say so, Olivia. At its core, it’s about leading people, not just processes or policies. The tools can change, the budgets can shrink, but leadership... that’s the constant. And it’s deeply human work.

Olivia Carter

And it’s the human part that really stands out to me. You’ve had decades of experience, led through every one of these crises we talked about, but it’s not the data centers or the cloud adoption you keep coming back to—it’s the people.

Mark Putnam

Exactly. Processes and tools support the work, but people carry it forward. And the thing I’ve learned—probably the hard way—is that resilience isn’t about never feeling uncertainty or fear. It’s about how you respond when those feelings come.

Olivia Carter

Yeah, you keep coming back to this idea of calm—being grounded, steady. I mean, I can see why that’s powerful, but... you make it sound like a superpower.

Mark Putnam

It can feel like that at times, but it’s not magic, Olivia. It’s intentional. A calm leader creates space for others to think clearly. And in the chaos of crisis—for your team, for your institution—that space is priceless.

Olivia Carter

So it’s not about always having answers. It’s about how you show up when no one knows what’s coming next.

Mark Putnam

That’s it. Leadership isn’t about perfection—it’s about presence. Your actions, your tone, your ability to anchor people when uncertainty’s swirling around. That defines leadership more than any grand plan ever could.

Olivia Carter

You know, hearing you explain it like that, it’s... a little inspiring, honestly. Like maybe the way forward isn’t as impossible as it feels sometimes.

Mark Putnam

That's the irony, really. Clarity, calm, and being grounded in purpose—they’re not complicated ideas. But during a crisis, they’re some of the hardest to hold onto. And yet, when you do, they shift everything.

Olivia Carter

So, if you had to leave one final thought for, I don’t know, that CIO or team leader listening out there, overwhelmed and just barely hanging on, what would it be?

Mark Putnam

It would be this: Your team doesn’t need you to have all the answers. They don’t need heroics. What they need is clarity. Calm. A steady presence grounded in something real. That’s the example they’ll follow—and it’s what gets everyone through to the other side.

Olivia Carter

And maybe it gets you through, too, right?

Mark Putnam

It does. Leading like this isn’t just for them—it’s survival for you, too. The fog clears eventually. You’ve just got to stay steady long enough to see it.

Olivia Carter

Well, on that note, I think we’ve given listeners plenty to reflect on, Mark. This has been such an incredible conversation—thank you for sharing your experience, your insight, and honestly, your calm.

Mark Putnam

Thank you, Olivia. It’s been a real pleasure. And to everyone listening—keep leading with intention. You’ve got this.