Dive Brief:

• Retired Gen. Charles Krulak, who is stepping down as president of Birmingham-Southern College in May, says he turned the college around with help from a team of talented individuals he recruited with an appeal to “raise Lazarus from the dead.”
• Krulak told the Chronicle of Higher Education that the turning point for the college was raising $17 million — the amount that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools' Commission on Colleges said was needed to get the school’s warning status removed.
• Krulak has worked since he was hired in 2011 without a salary, and lived in a 300-square-foot dorm space with his wife.

Dive Insight:

In his interview with the Chronicle, Krulak offers some words of wisdom that could be helpful to other presidents at struggling colleges. He says he had to draw on his experience as chief executive of an international bank in the position, and adds that getting a great provost or chief academic officer is crucial. Besides being placed on warning by its accreditor, the college’s credit rating had been downgraded by Moody’s to junk-bond levels when Krulak started as president. Moody’s has since upgraded the credit rating, but warns that the college still has financial challenges.