EMU-AAUP President Howard Bunsis sent around an email today that covered a number of issues, including some info about the search for a new president at EMU. Here’s part of what he wrote:
In other news, here is an update on the presidential search: The AAUP representative on the committee, Jim Carroll of Physics, reports the following news from the search committee:
- The Compass Group (http://www.compassgroup.com/index.html), was chosen to assist the committee in the presidential search.The Compass Group was chosen by the Regents; the faculty representatives on the committee were not involved in the selection of the search firm.
- There will not be any public sessions on campus to discuss criteria for the next president. If faculty has any candidates or views of criteria for the next president, we should immediately funnel everything through Jim Carroll or Russ Larson, our representatives.
- In addition, the search committee will not conduct the checking of all references once the candidates are chosen. This will be done by the search firm.
- A group of concerned faculty (not directed by the AAUP leadership) sent a letter to all the members of the search committee, citing concerns about the search, and asking for more transparency and openness in the process. The Regents on the Committee made clear that such letters should go through our representatives, and not be sent directly to the other committee members. Of course, that does not prohibit the sending of letters to all the Regents
A few thoughts on this and a call to EMUTalk.org readers:
First off, it doesn’t bother me too much that the BoR decided to hire a consulting firm (e.g., “Head Hunter”) to do the search, and it also doesn’t bother me much that there will be a lot of confidentiality about who is applying/being considered for the job until late in the process, probably not until finalist show up on campus for interviews. That’s pretty standard procedure for hires at this level. What I do wonder about is this firm that the BoR have hired, the Compass Group. While I only spent a few minutes on their web site, I did not see the word “education” anywhere on it; I did see the words “executive” and “management” a lot. Maybe this is really naive of me, but it would be nice if they at least thought about working with a consulting firm with some higher education experience. For example, maybe someone on the BoR should have least thought about calling these folks for advice, the firm that brought us Interim Prez Craig Willis.
(Two other things that bother me about the Compass Group: first while I have no evidence for this, I have to believe there is some kind of connection between current BoR folks and the people who run this Birmingham, MI-based company; and second, their web site is pretty annoying).
Second, I think the BoR is making a mistake in not having any public sessions about the criteria for the next president. Whether or not the hiring committee or the consulting group would take input from the university community seriously is beside the point. Frankly, it’s just bad PR.
But hey, we’re all about moving forward here at EMUTalk.org, and we’re also all about finding out what people in the EMU community think. So, without going down the obvious path (“someone who will avoid covering up murders”), what is it that EMU wants in their next president?
I’ll send this comment on to Jim Carroll and Russ Larsen. The next president of EMU should be someone with management experience and national stature in the knowledge industry: higher ed, companies like google or apple (or microsoft), bell labs, national labs, big pharma, … some place where *knowledge* is the product. I am not wedded to the criterion of a higher ed person. In fact, I’m not at all enthused about hiring a president with a PhD in higher ed administration. But I do think managing an enterprise where knowledge is the product is a very different thing than other kinds of management. An executive from, say, a car company will be at a huge disadvantage in understanding the demands and constraints of higher education (unless he/she came up through the research and development side).
Experience in government policy and government relations is low, low, low on the list of desiderata. While (I think) EMU has been a consistent loser in the Michigan appropriations stakes, and it would be nice to have someone who is good with the state money people, the state government’s direct support of EMU has been dropping forever (since at least the early 90s) and there’s no reason to expect the state to ever increase its percentage support of EMU.
This post breaks rendering of EMUTalk.org in Safari!
Oops. It should work now. I should follow my own advice on using the code and not the WYSIWIG editor with this site.
We need a president who knows that EMU’s future prosperity depends on serving students with high quality academic programs, and that means we gotta put our money into academics.
I’d like to see a president who honestly believes in “Education First” and not “all the other stuff” first, and who has a commitment to the academic mission (and who recognizes that that’s where the money comes from). I don’t really care if the next president is a “scholar” per se, but I think she or he ought to be at least an “academic” and ought to recognize that faculty scholarship is important. I’d like to see someone who has an understanding of unions and is willing to work with them instead of attempting to break them. I’d like to see a president who has enough backbone and integrity to take a stand that might be at odds with the BoR, even if that might cost her or him the job. And I’d like to see someone who is familiar with the complexities of our unique little world at EMU.
I do not believe that there is any tangible product in the Education First business. Education is a process. Education is context sensitive in terms of the larger society. A president of a University must understand this process and ideally have been an active participant in it–they should have experienced and enjoyed both the challenges and the satisfaction of being fully engaged in the quest for knowledge. It is a risky business. It requires an open mind and creativity. What may have been appropriate to the process yesterday may not be appropriate today. The greatest advances come from being willing to take risks. Climb out on the proverbial limb. To plop a politico or a blindered business type at the top of the bee hive of mental activity boggles my mind and, IMO, makes absolutely no sense. I do not believe Education can be ‘marketed’. If we do our jobs right, the results speak for themselves. The results are members of a society who can think critically, make informed decisions, recognize the value of diversity, shrink from stereotyping and, having engaged in the thinking process, continue throughout their lives to be thoughtful humanitarians. Our President should be wise without being arrogant, recognize that putting money into a football team brings only short term results, putting money into the training of minds brings long term benefits. Our President should be a consensus builder. Our President should be above political wrangling. There are ways to build a community where the petty grabs for ostensible power are simply irrelevant. I don’t even want to think about the possibility that we might get a University President who is not, themselves, the result of the Educational process . The indications are that we will get a ‘talking head’ in an expensive suit. And, we will, once again, be diverted from our primary purpose due to the resulting debacle. I hope that this does not happen and I appreciate the involvement and activity of all those among us who are attempting to influence the outcome of this important transitional time at EMU.
I personally believe there shouldn’t be an EMU Presidential search because EMU shouldn’t bother having a University President. I think a president muddies the water in getting anything accomplished. I’d be more in favor of something a bit more democratic.
Could save lots of money for Academic Programs doing away with Presidential Perks, Presidential Pay Checks, Presidential Trips/Junkets, Presidential Mansions, and so on.
If Freemen Hendrix is doing a superb job in Lansing, in the lobbying effort, then pray tell why we even need an EMU President for?
Everything can and should be handled on the local front.
Why can’t 1 or 2 representatives of each area act as a voice for their causes and the Regents who are the final authority on everything anyhow just continue to do so?