U. of Illinois Presidential Search - Off to a Poor Start

Rocked by scandal and turmoil, one of the nation’s top public university systems is searching for a new leader. The daunting challenges facing the incoming president call for sophistication, experience, strategic skills, courage, and vision. Unfortunately, in announcing Monday the composition of the presidential search committee, the trustees have thrown up a roadblock to finding that person.

The new search committee will have nineteen members: three trustees, eight faculty members, three students, one civil service employee, one member of the academic professional staff, one administrative officer, one alumni association representative, and one member of the Illinois Foundation. The members are to be spread across the school’s three campuses, with student and faculty members chosen by elections of their respective senates.

Thus the new Illinois search committee, aside from being unworkably large, will have many members who have scant insight into the responsibilities and challenges of the presidency, may never even have met a university president, and will lack the knowledge and sophistication needed properly to evaluate candidates. The rationale for large, broadly inclusive search committees is to pay homage to community desires to participate in the search. Unfortunately, this goal conflicts with the more important goal of finding the best candidate.

Broadly inclusive search committees tend to extract mostly generic views from candidates. Thus, student representatives will ask if candidates are really committed to undergraduate teaching. University senators will ask if candidates support shared governance. Minority members will ask if candidates will foster racial and ethnic diversity. (Hint: the answer is yes to all three.) All candidates expect such questions and know to give bland, cautious answers that avoid stepping on toes; they will keep to themselves any views, however relevant, that some committee members could find objectionable. Change agents and problem-solvers need not apply.

Committee members who lack a nuanced understanding of the president’s job are often drawn to candidates who are outgoing, appear distinguished, remember their names, and seem friendly and approachable. While these are desirable social traits, they have more to do with the ability to interview well than the potential to advance an institution. Inexperienced committee members cannot assess a candidate’s decisiveness, planning skills, and ability to identify good people, not to mention his or her willingness to tackle problems, plan strategically, delegate appropriately, foster morale, build an executive team, and master the nuances of university finances.

In the quiet of their offices, trustees will often acknowledge that a large, democratically balanced search committee would not be their druthers. Such committees, they will confess, are mostly window dressing intended to keep the peace among campus constituencies. Instinctively, trustees also understand that such committees are unlikely to settle on decisive candidates who would face up to their institution’s problems and guide it through turbulent waters. Even so, after weighing the pros and cons, trustees often decide to tread cautiously and yield to community pressures, reasoning that, somehow, they will still be able to identify and recruit the best president, despite the obstacles. Typically this means that the "real" search takes place behind the scenes in conversations between trustees and the search consultant.

But experience suggests that this reasoning is flawed. Trustees should not overestimate their own abilities to evaluate candidates, nor the acuity of search consultants. Governing boards really need the informed advice and balanced judgment that a well-chosen search committee can provide. Hiring a president is the most important action a university governing board ever takes, and choosing the right person for the job has to take precedence over the desire of campus groups to influence directly the decision.

What do I mean by a “well-chosen search committee?” First, only in part for practical reasons, it should be no larger than eight members. Paradoxically, small committees tend to generate fewer complaints from academic communities than very large committees. The latter encourage the community to parse itself into an ever finer grid of vested interests, all of which will demand representation. So long as a small or medium sized committee makes a good-faith effort to solicit advice from across campus, and so long as the members are admired and respected, complaints from the community are likely to be muted.

And second, the committee must have members who understand the complexity and scope of responsibilities of the presidency and also have a deep understanding of the problems and needs of the institution.

Thus it is essential the committee include some of the most respected scholars and teachers at the institution. Only faculty members can evaluate the credentials and prior scholarly work of candidates, and even if that work took place decades ago, it still provides important insight into candidates’ intellectual depth and administrative style.

Search committees should also include a sitting or former chancellor or president. Only one who has actually done the job can appreciate fully its pressures, demands, and complexities. A president or chancellor can also spot superficial thinking and will not be impressed by candidates who lack substance but are able to interview well.

Search committees must include senior administrators – deans, vice-presidents or vice-chancellors. Senior administrators can place candidates’ administrative credentials in the context of campus problems and needs. Presidents must deal with turf battles between colleges and campuses, deans who have lost control of their budgets, soaring startup laboratory costs for new professors, and myriad other issues that never make it to a trustees’ meeting. Those in the trenches can assess the saviness of candidates to deal with such issues.

And of course, search committees must include members of the governing board. Trustee members will fully understand the larger societal responsibilities of the institution, the challenges of working with legislatures and elected officials, the importance of financial oversight, and the necessity to preserve and enhance the institution’s reputation for objectivity and integrity.

That other groups – students, staff members, alumni organizations, sports fans, senate members, and so forth – may not be personally sitting at the table does not mean their voices can be neglected. A properly functioning search committee has an important responsibility to consult with them and to represent their interests. But ultimately, trustees should realize that presidential leadership is so crucial to the well-being of the school that they should do everything possible to pick the best person. And if doing so means ruffling a few feathers, then so be it.