Abstract- In 1948. Harvard’s president, james conant declared ‘’geography is not a university subject,’’ and the institution’s geography program folded. Only a few years before, in a parenthesis in a cow pasture in the middle of pennsylyania. A newly hired young geographer walked into the office of the dean and stated that the ‘’ wanted to make geography at penn state the best in the world. “ a bold statement, to be sure, for the institution had not yet awarded a single degree in the field; but within two decades, the program placed 11th in the U.S. and in 1995, the national research council ranked the department in state college as first among its peers. The demise of geography at Harvard had little, if anything, to do with the nature of the discipline, but everything to do with the laissez faire leadership of the program director, derwent whittlesey. In contrast, penn state’s success is a fortunate outcome of the vision, inspiration, and transformation leadership of E.W miler, who administered the development of the geography program in the 1940s and 1950s. this work relates accounts of these contrasting episode in the history of the geographic discipline in reference to higher education leadership, with the intention to lend critical insight to chairpersons of contemporary academic departments in their efforts to lead their colleagues in the 21 st century. Keywords-higher education leadership: history of geography ; academic departments; Harvard; pen state