Cedar Rapids Gazette, IA
01-05-07
Regents discussed interviews, student representation
Documents shed new light on UI presidential search
By: Diane Heldt - The Gazette
Six state regents believe a new University of Iowa presidential search committee
should not promise public campus interviews with finalists, e-mails obtained
Thursday by The Gazette show.
They were responding to an e-mail regents President Michael Gartner of Des
Moines sent on Dec. 12, before a Dec. 18 telephonic meeting that launched a
second attempt to find a new UI president.
The meeting was criticized by some because the regents exchanged information
by e-mail before meeting in open session. That did not violate Iowa's openmeetings law but was not in the law's spirit, Kathleen Richardson, executive
secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, said later.
Gartner sought in his e-mail opinions about the new search, including if a dean
should lead it, if a regent should be on the committee and if the committee should
insist on campus interviews.
The e-mails show two board members favoring campus interviews. One did not
answer immediately. Some regents say campus interviews could make
candidates drop out and that such public interviews are becoming less common.
That has been a point of contention in the rocky search for a successor to David
Skorton, who left the UI in June for the Cornell University presidency. UI faculty,
staff and student leaders say campus interviews, long a tradition, are essential to
finding the right president.
The regents unanimously selected UI College of Dentistry Dean David Johnsen
on Dec. 18 to lead a new search. The search had been in limbo since Nov. 17,
when the regents voted 6-2 to reject four recommended candidates and disband
the original search committee. That move prompted UI faculty, staff and student
groups to overwhelmingly pass resolutions of no confidence in board leadership
last month.
E-mails sent before the Dec. 18 meeting, provided to The Gazette by the regents
office Thursday in response to a Freedom of Information Request, also revealed:
* Regents were split on whether one of them should serve on the new
committee, with four against it. Several said they specifically support Regent Bob
Downer of Iowa City as a representative.
* At least two regents said a student should not be on the new search
committee. Student Regent Jenny Connolly of Cedar Falls supported having one.
Downer suggested a 12-member committee of five faculty, including Johnsen;
two staff; two students; two alumni and one regent.
* At least four regents thought the new committee should have 10 or fewer
members, and four regents said it should include another president, such as
Iowa State University President Gregory Geoffroy.
* The regents considered both Johnsen and UI College of Pharmacy Dean
Jordan Cohen to lead the new search. Gartner suggested choosing Johnsen as
chair and Cohen as a member.
* Six regents said the candidate pool should not be limited to academics; one
regent said it should be and two did not answer.
* Regent Tom Bedell of Spirit Lake, who resigned last month amid the search
controversy, wanted to delay the search to let tensions settle. Several regents
disagreed, arguing that faculty and staff prefer would not prefer delay. Bedell, in
an e-mail to regents after his resignation, suggested Gartner step down as board
president, though not from the board. Gartner responded that he did not intend to
do so.
* Gartner detailed in a Dec. 2 e-mail a Dec. 1 meeting that four regents had
with UI deans. They talked about openness and campus interviews, but "that did
not seem to be the big issues with them that it is with the Faculty Senate,"
Gartner wrote.
UI Faculty Senate President Sheldon Kurtz said Thursday the search discussion
via e-mail rather than in a public meeting continues to concern him. He said
reporters had to obtain the e-mails through a Freedom of Information request,
and that other important information may exist for which the media did not know
to ask.
"I'd prefer them to do the public's business in public," Kurtz said. "Doing business
that way subverts the intent of the open-meetings law. I really do think this raises
some really significant questions of public policy that the Legislature will have to
address."
What do we know?
* The regents unanimously selected University of Iowa College of Dentistry
ean David Johnsen on Dec. 18 to lead the new presidential search, a process
that had been in limbo since a 6-2 vote by the regents on Nov. 17 to reject four
candidates and scrap the first committee.
* Several regents say they want a new UI president selected by July.
* Regents President Michael Gartner said Thursday the regents have not
iscussed dates for a possible January meeting to talk about the new search
committee membership, but that Johnsen "is doing a fine job as he sorts through
precisely how to do this."