The Registry's model precludes its members from participating in the search for the permanent replacement.

"What that does is offer the school the ability to do a clean search without our people coming in and becoming part of that process," says Matthews.

Rather, interims often help the institution create a more appealing environment for the permanent hire by providing stability during a transition, says Matthews.

Before they are offered an interim assignment, most executives will meet with board members or other university officials but typically do not go through a formal interview process.

"We don't discourage it in a negative way, but because it's not a permanent position, what we want to do is to make sure that an interim can come in there and not have to make political alliances," says Matthews. "An interim needs to be able to come in and in some ways act like a consultant and tell truth to power."

That's why Dr. George Ross, president of historically Black Alcorn State University in Mississippi, decided to go with an external interim provost.

"I wanted them (interims) to come in, help me make a fair assessment, move Alcorn forward, and frankly help make some of those difficult decisions and not have any political or career ties to the university," says Ross. "Decisions could be made objectively without any fear of how this might affect someone's candidacy or, frankly, someone's relationships and friendships with existing people here."

The Two ‘T's' The Registry stresses to its members that there is more than one paradigm for a successful interim placement - transitional and transformational. The more traditional model is the transitional, in which interims essentially act as a placeholder until a permanent person is hired. However, says Matthews, more and more, transformational leadership is required.

Pogue says he doesn't know how to be just transitional.

"I am a transformative-type person," he says. "I said that to the people in Chicago as well, that I was not going to sit there and try to hold things together because basically it would be impossible to sit in a president's chair without being motivated to keep the university moving forward. You can't move an organization forward, particularly dealing with faculty, unless you're going to try to transform the university."