We now have a search firm, says the Ann Arbor News. The rolling search process, which leads to arbitrary decisions, and the now many times hyped “non-traditional candidate” (or, in other words, a candidate with potentially no higher education experience) does not bode well for a credible process.
“EMU selects firm to look for its next president”
Regent Jim Stapleton, co-chair of the 12-member presidential advisory committee, said Friday that the group interviewed two firms and chose the Birmingham-based company to assist in the search. The committee met with the firm Friday to offer perspective on what members want for EMU’s next president. Next Friday, the firm will provide a profile of what they envision for the next president, Stapleton said. …
Meanwhile, over a hundred faculty signed the following letter sent to all of the search committee members, insisting on transparency in the search process:
October 24, 2007
Dear [Committee Member],
We thank you for your willingness to serve on the Presidential Search Committee at this significant moment in the history of Eastern Michigan University. As concerned faculty members, we are eager to work collaboratively with you in this process.
We recognize that the presidential search process presents you with the challenging task of protecting privacy rights of applicants in the early stages of the process while satisfying the public’s right to know. The need to keep the campus informed and engaged in this process is especially critical given EMU’s commitment to regaining damaged trust of students, faculty and community members.
Since it is your intent to make the search committee charge and procedures public, we urge you to do this as soon as possible. In the absence of public statements from the committee, bits and pieces from interviews that appear in the media raise concern and speculation across campus. These concerns may be allayed if you provide information on matters such as the breadth of the search (regional or national); the role of the search consultants; the number of candidates to be recommended to the Board for final decision; the date by which the Board expects recommendations of nominees; and the means by which members of the campus community will be able to contribute to the search process and remain informed of its progress.
In addition, we are eager to work to assist the committee in attracting the best possible candidates for the EMU Presidency. We want to help ensure that the selected candidate emerges with broad support of faculty and students. We are also eager to learn from mistakes of the past. We believe that in prior presidential search processes, there was not enough notice provided to faculty members and students about candidate visits, and not enough attention given to carefully soliciting faculty and student candidate preferences.
Hence, we envision a 90-minute question and answer session between each candidate and members of the faculty, including emeritus faculty members. We urge that a similar session take place between each candidate and members of the student body. Following these sessions, data on candidate preferences will be collected and tallied and presented to the committee. We believe these sessions will be extraordinarily important opportunities for the campus community to participate in the presidential search process. We also believe the results will be exceptionally useful to the search committee in formulating its recommendations.
We appreciate your leadership and stand ready to join you in restoring community and trust to the governance of EMU.
Sincerely,
Members of the faculty, as signed below
Don Shelton will be your next President. Qualifications: Attorney, Circuit Court Judge, past EMU Regent, Democrat. The Regents don’t seem to be listening and are still pulling strings behind the scenes for very important hires at Eastern.
Well, Alum, I don’t know your sources, but i think Judge Shelton has a good job now that he is qualified for, and I very
much doubt that he’d want to become President of EMU thru a highly unusual process that, if it ends up hiring him,
would clearly be seen by all observers as having been a “fix” from the start. I think Judge Shelton has honor, and if he wants to be EMU’s president, he’d insist that he be a candidate in a normal search, one at least kind of close to the norms of higher educational institutitons all around the country. And the process that the Regents seem to be creating is highly unusual in everyway,
and no Judge with integrity would dare put his reputation at risk by exposing himself to the variety of conflicts of
interest that such a fixed search would create for him.
Any search process set up in advance to lead to the hiring of a specific individual is tainted. I have to believe that Judge Shelton is too wise to fall into this pit.
Good line, but this is the M.O. of Roy Wilbanks and crew.
“Any search process set up in advance to lead to the hiring of a specific individual is tainted.”
I have heard that Judge Shelton does want the job.