In this year’s presidential search committee, says Chancellor Lindsay Gordon, stakeholder input will be of the utmost priority in finding a new president for the university.
“What will determine the success of the search is who’s on the committee,” said Gordon in an interview with The Ubyssey. “So obviously we want to attract the best possible representatives of the stakeholders.”
The committee will be made up of a variety of representatives from a wide range of parties across campus including faculty, staff, students, alumni and the Board of Governors.
The terms of reference (guidelines used to define the purpose of a project or committee) for finding a new president will change very little from last time, said Gordon who will chair the search committee. He pointed to two adjustments: The number of board representatives will go from four to three and the search firm that will be hired to assist the committee will ultimately be selected by the search committee itself rather than the Board of Governors.
Prior to the 2013 search, the board had three representatives on the committee. “For some reason, it got changed to four [and this year] the Board of Governors felt there was no particularly compelling reason for there to be four,” said Gordon.
This number is symmetric with other groups such as students, faculty and staff — all of whom traditionally have three representatives on the committee.
With regards to the search firm, Gordon said that although the board will advise the committee on which firm to select, it simply made sense to leave the final choice to the committee itself who will have the most interaction with the firm.
The chancellor admitted that Gupta’s abrupt departure meant that increased public scrutiny would be on this year’s committee. “The departure of [Gupta] creates an additional challenge. But my perspective would be [that] it’s a manageable challenge and offset by the fact that this is an amazing university sought after [by] leaders,” said Gordon.
He refused to comment on what the committee would be looking for in a new president or what the specific process would be stating that these matters were for the committee as a whole to decide as soon as possible after members are announced.
When asked what measures would be put in place to make sure another sudden departure does not happen again, Gordon said that, although it’s impossible to say for absolute certain, they will aim to be as confident as possible that the next person will be here for the long haul. “I think it’s perfectly reasonable to have some questions because of what happened last time around. But as for the detailed steps to ensure what I described as our goal is achieved, that will be the responsibility of the search committee.”
Gordon will be making regular updates at Board of Governor meetings on how the process is going throughout the next nine months. Although on specifics, he points to the best practice of any hiring process — to not discuss names of potential candidates publicly. Meetings of the committee will not be open to the public.
“It’s important that [although] we’ve got a time constraint … we not cut any corners. We make sure that we get full stakeholder input,” said Gordon referring to Martha Piper's leaving date of June 30, 2016. “I do believe that because of the strength of the institution that we can, and will, have a very successful search.”