This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education
(http://chronicle.com)
Thursday, September 13, 2001
Presidential Searches Go Online
By JENNIFER JACOBSON
If you're interested in the presidential search at the
University of Tennessee at Knoxville, you don't have to wait
for the news media to cover it. Thanks to the Web, you can
keep tabs on it yourself.
In seeking a successor to J. Wade Gilley, who resigned in
April after 22 months at the helm, the university has joined a
new and growing trend: Colleges are creating special Web sites
to post information about their presidential searches. These
institutions aren't necessarily releasing more details than
they did before; they're simply improving access to the
information that they already release.The material they are
posting includes formal descriptions of the position, news
releases chronicling the search, and shortlists of potential
candidates.
"It's just such an effective resource and tool," says R.
William Funk, managing director of college-presidential
searches for Korn/Ferry International, an executive search
firm that is a consultant to Tennessee's search. "From
presidents to assistant professors to support staff, all of
the people we work with in higher education are so Web-savvy
that's it's an incredibly effective way to communicate. It's
so easy to reach so many people."
In the last two years, he says, officials leading each of the
four presidential searches at Big Ten institutions -- Indiana
University at Bloomington, Ohio State University, Purdue
University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
-- created Web sites to keep the public abreast of the
process.
So far, Mr. Funk says, the trend has been limited largely to
public institutions. In fact, it's becoming increasingly
unusual for a public university not to create a Web site for
its presidential search, he says. The committees that he works
with routinely scout the Web sites of other presidential
searches to scope out the competition, get ideas for their own
sites, and see if any of their top candidates have been
mentioned as finalists elsewhere.
The University of Tennessee has gone one step further by
trying to make the Web site for its presidential search more
interactive. Not only does the site outline the search plan
and name the members of the search committee, it also asks the
public for nominations and for suggestions about the process.
The university is expected to post additional information as
it becomes available, including a position description.
Tennessee's governor, Don Sundquist, a Republican and the
chairman of the university's search committee, wanted an
"inclusive, professional, and positive" search that sought
input from the public at large, says Cathy L. Cole, deputy
executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education
Commission. "We thought of no better way to do this than
through establishing a Web site."
Carolyn R. Hodges, a professor of German at Tennessee who is
chairwoman of the search committee's advisory council, says
the panel hopes the Web site will assure people that "it is an
open search, that there's not some agenda that's been decided
on in advance."
So far, Tennessee has received more than 100 nominations via
the Web site, says Mr. Funk. His firm notifies all candidates,
whether they were nominated online or through more traditional
routes, and inquires whether they would like to apply for the
job. Most of the nominations have been serious. "You'll
occasionally get Mickey Mouse or George Bush or Colonel
Sanders," he says, but "it's very rare."
The University of Wisconsin at Madison, which created a Web
site for its search for a new chancellor, is one of the few
other institutions to offer the public the opportunity to
nominate candidates online. It also enabled potential
candidates to nominate themselves confidentially, says David
Musolf, secretary of the faculty at Wisconsin.
Ultimately the university promoted John D. Wiley, its provost
for six years, who took over as chancellor in January. He was
not nominated via the Web site.
Not everyone is a fan of such sites. Bernice Durand, a
professor of physics at Madison and chairwoman of its
chancellor's search committee, says she had mixed feelings
about it. "It was helpful because it broadened the search. On
the other hand, it was a nuisance -- one more thing to keep
track of." Ms. Durand says she had to check the confidential
account for the site regularly and read all the nominations,
some of which were "junk," she says. "I responded to
everything just so nobody could say I didn't."
Few institutions have conducted live chats and interviews with
their presidential candidates on the Web, but Mr. Funk
predicts that more and more will do so. Still, he doesn't
think the searches will become more public than they are now.
"The searches at the presidential level do best when
confidentiality is maintained," Mr. Funk says. "It would be
detrimental to have the full list of candidates there. Sitting
presidents don't want people to know they're candidates for
another job. It's thought of as disloyal. Funny how boards are
jealous that way."
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Copyright by The Chronicle of Higher Education
Verbie Lovorn Prevost
Katharine Pryor Professor of English
Director of English Graduate Studies
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Ave
Chattanooga, TN 37403
Phone: 423-755-4627
Fax: 423-785-2282
email: [log in to unmask]
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