The primary purpose of this investigation was to identify and describe the current role of the executive vice president in higher education. The subpurposes of the study were to determine (1) the duties of the executive vice president, (2) the decision-making responsibilities associated with the position, (3) the degree of agreement between presidents, executive vice presidents, and written documents regarding the duties of the office, and (4) the extent of numerical increase or decrease of the position. An analysis of the findings led to the following conclusions that (1) there is close agreement between presidents and executive vice presidents regarding the duties and requirements of the position of executive vice president; (2) there is little agreement between presidents of differing types and sizes of institutions and between vice presidents of such differing institutions; (3) a majority of institutions have written job descriptions for the position but few of these documents actually describe the position with detail; (4) this study also generated a composite job description; and (5) finally, demonstrates that the position of executive vice president has grown at a significant rate over the past decade
