Minutes*
Faculty Consultative Committee
with the Arts, Sciences, and Engineering
Provost Search Committee
Monday, April 10, 1995
1:00 - 2:30
Room 433 Johnston Hall
Present:
John Adams (chair), Carl Adams, Dan Feeney, Virginia Gray, Kenneth Heller, Roberta
Humphreys, Michael Steffes, Gerhard Weiss
Guests:
(Members of the Arts, Sciences, and Engineering Provost Search Committee:) Ellen
Berscheid, John Chipman, Fennel Evans, Ronald Gentry, Patrice Morrow (Note: other
faculty members of the search committee also present were FCC members Professors
Humphreys, Steffes, and Weiss)
[In these minutes: Events associated with the Arts, Sciences, and Engineering Provost search]
Professor Adams convened the meeting at 1:00 and thanked the members of the Arts, Sciences,
and Engineering Provost Search Committee for joining FCC on short notice.
He began by noting he had called the meeting on the heels of the events of the previous week, the
nomination of Professor Shively to be Provost by the administration to the Board of Regents and all the
discussions that surrounded it. A number of questions have been raised, he observed; it would be
appropriate if the Committee said some things that need to be said about the search process.
The search committee members and FCC members had a wide-ranging 90-minute discussion that
touched upon a number of issues.
--
The events associated with the search call into question some of the ways business is done, and the
faculty ought to make clear to their university what THEY think with respect to searches, the way
in which Academic Affairs and the President, as well as the relationship of the President to the
Regents, are connected to the academic agenda.
--
Search committee members were taken aback and dismayed at the statements made about the
process, including what several perceived as open lies and claims that search committee members
said things they had never said. Nor did they expect to hear the things they did about Professor
Shively.
--
Discussion of the search process carries with it the implication that there was something
fundamentally wrong that led to this outcry. That has been both implied and stated several times,
by people who weren't involved. But the committee was one of the strengths of this search, and
*
These minutes reflect discussion and debate at a meeting of a committee of the University of Minnesota
Senate or Twin Cities Campus Assembly; none of the comments, conclusions, or actions reported in these minutes
represent the views of, nor are they binding on, the Senate or Assembly, the Administration, or the Board of Regents.
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
2
the general feeling is that the committee did its job extremely well.
--
An issue that will recur is that the provost serves a large body of diverse constituents. There may
be a much broader range of groups in the Arts, Sciences, and Engineering provostal area than in
the other two provostal areas. That leads to problems in the search, and also produces more
"political" reactions.
--
There was a lot of talking past each other in the discussion last week. Some people referred to
management experience while others referred to academic leadership. How do search committees
tackle this, when the provost's position requires both?
It was recalled that James Conant, regarded by some as the best academic leader the United States
has had, went straight from being a professor to being President of Harvard; there have been
similar advances. There are many people who would be vetoed because they had no administrative
experience--but they have the vision and they know what the job is about. That is BY FAR the
most important thing, rather than the ability to read spread sheets.
The search committee, by contrast, saw a lot of candidates who had the administrative experience;
they appeared to be rotating among universities. They had the managerial experience but they
lacked vision and knowledge of the job, and one gets the impression that their interest in the
position was as one further stage in their professional career.
Yet some involved in the process wanted, and emphasized, management experience. FCC must
emphasize the point that academic leadership does not necessarily come from experienced
managers. "It is easier to train a leader to be a manager than to train a manager to be a leader."
--
What was dismaying about this search was that some Board members and administrators clearly
believe that experience in faculty governance counts for nothing. In some cases, it became clear
that there is disdain for the work faculty have put in for years on faculty committees and on
difficult tasks for the University. On the other hand, someone who is an assistant to an assistant to
a dean at a fifth rate college IS seen as having managerial experience, but someone who has served
on the University's most important committees and who has tackled hard issues is seen to have no
kind of experience relevant to this position. This is a change, on the part of certain members of the
administration and on the part of some members of the Board. People in faculty governance were
never held in astoundingly high regard, but there was more respect in the past.
--
The University will have trouble getting good and busy faculty members to serve on any more of
these committees unless they are supported and defended by the faculty governance system, and
the Consultative Committee in particular. They must also be supported by the administration.
This search got to the point that search committee members, concerned about their reputations,
raised the issue of slander and libel with the General Counsel, because some of what was being
said may have been actionable. Search committees are loyal to the University, but if there are no
reassurances that their work will be supported, people will not participate on them. The
governance system must stand up for the search committees and the administration must not allow
members of the administration to vilify them in the performance of their duties.
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
3
--
The issue of the relationship between the Board of Regents and the administration of the
University, and the role of the Board in institutional management, may have been a factor in the
search. At many institutions the Regents deal only with the President; they do not talk to deans or
other individuals. That would require significant cultural change were it to become the practice at
the University.
--
The need for faculty members to fill administrative ranks was discussed at length. It is convenient
for the faculty to have professional administrators, and at one level it is their fault, because faculty
do not want to do those jobs; as a result, the University hires professionals. There was a strong
sentiment among the search committee members and many who wrote to it to do away with the
CEO mentality. There was a strongly-felt view that "we need faculty," someone who knows what
faculty do, someone who has an appreciation for research and teaching and who also has viability
and credibility as a scholar.
At the same time, some see this as an old-fashioned sentiment and that the future requires
managers. It is accurate to say that faculty are partly at fault, because they usually do not want the
jobs, but then they complain that it's not a faculty member in the position. One way to address that
problem would be to do more in the way of identifying future academic leaders and training them,
sending them to workshops in the summer or whatever it takes, so there are more faculty in a
position to take on these roles and the University need not look outside. The University could do
much more to develop its own leadership.
Perhaps academic institutions generally are not very good at investing in their own personnel; big
companies do it all the time. It is assumed that once somebody has their degree and obtained
tenure, they know what they're doing. When people become chair or head or associate dean, it is
learned that they DON'T know what they're doing, and then people wonder why. The University
must invest in people in order for them to understand what it is they are expected to do. Some of
the legal headaches the University faces can be traced directly to people not really knowing how to
do what they were charged to do, and then the President and vice presidents spend one or two days
a week trying to get the University out of legal messes.
"What is the business we are in?" is a question that must be kept in mind. There is a corporate
approach, "that you just run universities, you tell people what to do and they're supposed to go do
it." The University's publics need to be reminded that this is not the U. S. Army and it's not
General Dynamics; it's a different kind of enterprise. If people forget that, the faculty may be the
only group that will remind them.
--
The University has an enormous amount of resources pouring into it but it does not do as well as it
should in stopping doing things that have outlived their usefulness or the costs of which outweigh
the return. Nor are the faculty good at figuring that out. Perhaps there is a need to do better at
teaching people how to be university professors--in addition to being the world's greatest
economist or physicist. Training a chemist is not the same as training someone to be a responsible
university professor or department head or dean. They have to go together, but the University does
not have enough people who understand that point.
Some faculty members know perfectly well which units ought to get smaller, which departments
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
4
are no longer needed, which could be consolidated, even which colleges might not be around in
five years. But one can't use a meat axe; there has to be thought about the directions in which the
University will go and how resources will be redeployed. And, as in the case of Waseca, the
University must facilitate the movement of people from one line of responsibility to another and
give them a transition, make an investment in them. The University does not have to demoralize
people in order to get them to do a new job. Some who have gone to seed in the prime of their life
might be much happier if they were helped to become useful again.
Search committee members also offered a number of observations about the search process.
--
The job description was a problem. More should be done to indicate who is being sought and what
the job is; that is more difficult, however, with a job that has not existed before. Some of those
who were interested in the position were troubled by the description; some asked if it was
"doable." Any search committee must insist on a clear understanding of the position and of the
person being sought.
Relatedly, it may be that the requirement of familiarity with the University of Minnesota should
not be in a position description. People outside the University read it as a set-up for an incumbent,
as do those inside.
--
An 18-person committee is an unwieldy device and a natural set-up for a seven- or 12-month
search. The size of committees must be reduced so they can meet and interact more effectively.
A contrary view is that there are groups who would object, after a search, that it produced
candidate(s) they did not like. A larger committee could point out that the group had been
represented; a smaller committee does not permit that breadth of representation.
At the same time, FCC and others have argued that it is NOT a good idea to have search committee
members who "represent groups." Representing groups is not what search committees are about;
they are supposed to look out for the long-term interests of the University. Groups can be defined
a variety of ways, such as engineers, undergraduates, physical scientists, the elderly, minorities.
The definition of interest groups is never ending and the population can be partitioned indefinitely;
what is obtained? One hopes for sensitivity to one of the University's central agendas, but that is
different from getting people on a committee and expecting them to carry a particular flag. But the
major ACADEMIC groups must be represented.
Regent Hogan called for a rainbow and faculty must recognize the call; there were allegations that
emerged during the process on this issue. Because of these concerns, the University may have to
have sizeable search committees.
--
The role of outsiders on search committees needs consideration. In this search, one of them played
a major role and the other three did not. How many external members are needed and who should
they represent? They are busy in their profession or community and it is often difficult to draw
them in as active participants.
--
There is a difference between an active search committee and one that is more passive. It is clear
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
5
that this was an active search committee, but there have been others that have been formed,
advertised, and then waited to see what happened, rather than tapping into networks and bringing
names forward. It is important that search committees be active.
--
The University conducts many searches, and there are number of procedures and tricks to the
process. It would be very helpful to have a resource person or office someplace in the University
that could be tapped for expertise. FCC has emphatically advised the administration that on senior
searches, many of the procedures and the staffing be routinized so the process need not be
reinvented.
The University often does not think about the impact of what it does on the candidates, especially
from the outside. It needs someone who is sensitive to what is done in terms of maximizing the
impact on candidates. Right now a bunch of novices ride in, do the search, and then go back to
their jobs. There is a need for wisdom and insight about searches so they can be conducted
consistently and with good staff support to the chair. And faculty would be more willing to chair
committees when they know they'll have reliable and professional support.
--
In the interests of time and efficiency, the search committee did not follow a number of the
procedures that are traditionally used in searches. They decided not to seek letters of
recommendation, because they believed them to be basically meaningless; they are NOT letters of
evaluation. Instead, they formed a subcommittee of four to talk to the deans and other
administrators to obtain information on the candidates. Just as faculty know their peers at other
institutions, the search committee believed that it could tap internal resources because the deans
and administrators would know people at other institutions. The attorneys affirmed that the
process was acceptable. This process allowed the search committee to narrow the list down to a
smaller number of candidates within a week. Instead of spending three weeks waiting for letters of
recommendation, and another period of time while an 18-member committee read them, they
simply sought information and acted on it, and probably obtained better information than what
would have been obtained from letters.
This not only meant the committee was able to act much more quickly, they were also able to
avoid compromising the external candidates. The minute letters are sought, the candidacy
becomes public. Some candidates asked the search committee NOT to request letters, because of
their current positions.
--
Another procedure that was not used in this case, but could be considered in the future, would be
to bring in a subset of semi-finalists who would talk with everyone at the University except the
President. As long as the candidates have no interaction with the appointing authority, they are not
public candidates. This might be a helpful mechanism to keep well-qualified external candidates
in the pool without compromising them. That is important if the University wants good people,
many of whom will back out when faced with the glare of publicity.
--
An issue that rankles is the requirement that the search committee fill out forms stating why it
turned down any candidates who were either women or minorities, but the lack of a parallel
requirement for eliminating white males without justification. There were a number of cases
where white males wrote very careful and thoughtful philosophy statements, and others where
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
6
minority individuals chose not to. If the University wants to be even-handed and consistent, the
search committee should have to justify, in writing, in the same consistent way, the decision it
makes on EVERY candidate, independent of their race or gender. This is a polarizing, silent issue.
The process needs to be even-handed and consistent in its treatment of everybody.
It would be better not to have to write down the details on ANYBODY, but as long as the
committee has to write why a minority or woman candidate is not qualified, then it ought to have
to justify the decisions it makes on people who were qualified and who worked very hard to
convince it they are viable candidates.
--
The quantification of the pool of candidates is a problem. For example, in this search any woman
who had made full professor was counted in the pool. In addition, the pool of woman candidates
was supposed to be 34%, but on this campus, the number of women who are full professors in the
provostal area is more nearly 10%. Upon inquiring, the search committee was told that the pool
included not only any woman professor, it included any woman who has any administrative or
teaching position all the way down to community colleges. The pool was not just from women at
comparable institutions, and the search committee was told it had to achieve that number.
Professor Adams thanked search committee members and FCC members for coming to the
meeting, and promised to produce a record of the meeting that would say things that the faculty wished to
say. He adjourned the meeting at 3:00.
-- Gary Engstrand
University of Minnesota
(What follows is the extended version of the preceding minutes.)
Professor Adams convened the meeting at 1:00 and thanked the members of the Arts, Sciences,
and Engineering Provost Search Committee for joining FCC on short notice.
He began by noting he had called the meeting on the heels of the events of the previous week, the
nomination of Professor Shively to be Provost by the administration to the Board of Regents and all the
discussions that surrounded it. A number of questions have been raised, he said, and he thought rather
than have the questions asked in ways that perhaps serve other purposes, it would be better if the
Committee should itself raise questions, and that the faculty should say the things that need to be said
about the search process.
Although there may be inclination on the part of some to take on issues in a larger, political arena,
his view is that there may be legitimate things for individuals to do, but that there are larger issues
involved about the future of the University, about the scholarship and teaching missions, the research
agenda, and so on. It would be a good idea for the Committee to think about the course the University is
on, and reflect on what has happened in the appointment of the three provosts, and then ask questions
about the issues and problems did recent searches highlight? What does the faculty want to say about the
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
7
processes that the University has been routinely using to fill these important posts? What might be some
needed improvements?
Professor Adams reflected that on the basis of many things people said to him and to others over
the last week, there is a desire to have post-mortems on the events; he said he has no taste for that. What
has happened, however, does call into question some of the ways business is done, and the faculty ought
to make clear to their university what THEY think with respect to searches, the way in which Academic
Affairs and the President, and the relationship of the President to the Regents, relate to the academic
agenda. Although these discussions are often launched in a general way, it is not until something
happens that people get focused and start to say things that need to be said--but then they say them in an
ad hominem fashion rather than addressing the general concerns that need to be fixed.
Professor Adams invited his colleagues to suggest how their time should be used, but urged that
they look ahead, and use the occasion of the completed roster of provosts and chancellors to get on with
the job that the University has set out to do. But there is a series of additional searches going forward
and appointments to be made; the University is a never-ending enterprise. He asked for views about what
it would be appropriate to do.
He urged that the Committee be cautious for the moment, and not say or do things that would
disrupt what many see as a very fragile situation with respect to the whole agenda. It would take very
little in the way of intemperate word or act to bring things to a halt. And there are many people around
who WOULD LIKE to bring things to a halt, because they cannot see the path that perhaps should be
defined and followed. There has been much progress in the last two years; if things can be kept
stabilized and on track, the University can move forward in the next couple of years in ways that the
leadership would prefer--and it can do so without giving anything away, and become a stronger faculty
and institution. But it would also be easy to go the WRONG direction, and end up with backs to the
wall, both internally and externally.
One Committee member noted that he had been involved in the process since its inception but that
this search was only symptomatic of many searches. From the standpoint of the search committee, the
process worked well. There was a very good spread of people, with various interests, and a lot of
cooperation in the committee.
The basic problem, which probably existed from the very beginning and which the Regents picked
up, was that the job description was not ideal. Much more should be done to indicate what is being
sought and what the job is; that is more difficult, however, with a job that has not existed before. Some
of those who were interested in the position were troubled by the description; some asked if it was
"doable." Any search committee must insist on a clear understanding of the position and of the person
being sought. The search included a statement that a person with experience at Minnesota would be
preferred. That was included for a very good reason; the faculty and some of the administration felt that
appointments of people with no experience at Minnesota became problematic. For an outsider, that may
have been a signal that there is an internal candidate and the University was only meeting affirmative
action requirements.
Otherwise, however, the process was as good as was possible. There was the other problem that
the President, in his enthusiasm, thought the process could be completed in three or four weeks, which
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
8
turned out to be utterly impossible. As a result it was extended--which gave the impression that the
University did not know what it wanted or there was a problem with the search. The search, however,
did NOT drag out for seven months; it went through December and January.
The search committee did NOT anticipate any flak from the Board of Regents, nor did it anticipate
open lies told about the process, such as claims that search committee members said things they never
had. Nor did they expect to hear the things they did about Professor Shively. "It's a dirty world out
there! I think we were a little bit innocent."
The intemperate remarks, said one Committee member, alluding to Professor Adams' opening
comments, have already been made. They have been appalling.
The general feeling, however, is that the committee did its job well, said one Committee member.
The question remains, under the circumstances, given what happened, is there any way that FCC might
articulate some recommendations about how this might be done better down the road? The University is
not out of the business of hiring senior administrators.
One search committee member recounted that he was a little traumatized and had no suggestion
about what they might have done differently so that everything would have been easier. Another pointed
out that the implication seems to be that there was something fundamentally wrong with the process that
led to this outcry. That has been not just implied, but also stated several times, said another, by people
who weren't there.
The search process got bound up in a number of larger issues, observed another committee
member, and that colored part of it. There are ways that procedures could be changed, things the search
committee did on an ad hoc basis, that would help. First, an 18-person committee is an unwieldy device
and a natural set-up for a seven- or 12-month search. The committees must be reduced so they can meet
and interact more effectively.
There were four outsiders on the search committee; one played a major role and the other three did
not make any significant contribution. The role of outsiders should be considered; how many are needed
and who they should represent. They are busy in their profession or community; it is almost impossible
to draw them in as active participants, so they operate on the basis of scattered and imprecise
information.
What would be too small for a search committee? What is a manageable size? Six to eight, it was
said.
But one of the strengths of the committee was that it had "representation" of various groups who
would rise, after they didn't like the answer; the committee could say it had that group represented. A
smaller committee does not permit that. FCC has talked about this several times, it was recalled; it has
been argued that it is NOT a good idea to have search committee members who "represent groups."
Representing groups is not what search committees are about; they are supposed to look out for the longterm interests of the University.
That is correct, it was then said, but people are representative not in a political way but as a
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
9
category; however wanted to shuffle the people on the search committee, there was someone there who
say the process was fair. With such a high profile appointment, it is likely things will get worse rather
than better, in the sense that some will say "this is not my person, and therefore these people excluded
persons of this category." Nor will they believe people who are not in their category. Society is getting
to be more and more like this.
Another committee member said that the strength of the search committee at the end, to be quite
blunt, lay with the women on it. The search committee could turn to three first rate senior faculty who
happened to be women, along with Judge Murphy. It should be recalled that this is being discussed
without those on the search committee who dissented; Regent Hogan called for a rainbow, and faculty
must recognize this. There were a lot of straight-out lies that emerged during the process on this issue.
Because of these concerns, the University may be saddled with sizeable search committees. The
University will have to tell search committees to keep a balanced view--which the core of this committee
did, despite the problems.
One committee member said she thought she was on the committee not to represent a group but
because she might know a lot of potential candidates. That is different, in a sense; one of the people she
identified was on a later short list. There might also be a way to incorporate people who know people,
even though not actually on the committee.
One of the comments made earlier was about the difference between an active search committee
and one that is more passive. It's clear that this was an active search committee--but there have been
others that have been formed, advertised, and then waited to see what happened. Rather than tapping
into networks and bringing names forward. One got the impression from the discussion last week that
some, without any knowledge, thought the search committee had not been active enough. The
presidential search, recalled one individual, was helped by a headhunter.
This search did not need a headhunter, asserted another Committee member, but the University
does these searches over and over. There a number of procedures and tricks to the process; to have a
resource person someplace in the University who could be tapped for these tricks would be very helpful.
There needs to be some place where there is knowledge about how to do these things.
FCC discussed this recently, Professor Adams recalled. It made a very emphatic recommendation
to central administration that on senior searches, many of the procedures and the staffing for them be
routinized so the process need not be reinvented. The point has been taken and Associate Vice President
Carrier's office is trying to figure out how. The same subject arose with respect to administrative
reviews, which has continued to plague FCC; it has asked why a new way of doing a review is devised
every time a dean or vice president is reviewed.
The University often does not think about the impact of what it does on the candidates, especially
from the outside. It needs someone who is sensitive to what is done in terms of maximizing the impact
on candidates. Right now a bunch of novices ride in, do the search, and then go back to their jobs. There
is a need for wisdom and insight on maximizing energies.
Another committee member said there is an opportunity to learn about the process, and it need not
come solely from this search. There were parallel provost searches, and the outcomes were the same: a
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
10
white male was appointed. Why is it that this particular search that was so politicized? Is it JUST the
fact that it was last? That seems too simplistic.
One could compare notes and speculate about motives and hypothesize about the environment in
which this went forward; it might be fun or it might be sad, depending on how one looks at it. The
constructive thing to do is to look forward and see what can be learned, and perhaps a separate and
private conversation about what this all means and what faculty as citizens might do about it.
Considering the fragility of the arrangements, and the challenges in front of the University, it would be
unfortunate to divert energies to a squabble, rather than be deliberate in saying how the next round of
high-level searches should be conducted. These will be crucial, if the University is to achieve the quality
it desires, the appointments will have to be the best. What must be done to the search to get the best
people into the pool and then appointed? There are two parts; it is one thing to identify a name; it is
another to carry out a search in such a way that the University ends up with the people it wants. When
people withdraw--and there were highly qualified people who DID withdraw--is there a message there?
Is there something the University is doing, or something it is doing in the search process, that is diluting
the impact?
One footnote for this search, but something that will recur, said one committee member, is that the
provost serves a large body of diverse constituents. There is a much broader range than in the other two
provostal areas, which means that it is blurred rather than focused. That leads to problems in the search,
and also produces more "political" reactions than in the other two areas. It was also agreed that
outsiders, unless carefully selected for their dedication, play little role in the process. The University is a
public institution, so the public should have more than a token involvement, but there is a limited number
of people like Diana Murphy. Development of a list of people was suggested, and the need for an
institutionalized headhunter was affirmed.
Groups can be defined a variety of ways, noted one committee member, such as engineers,
undergraduates, physical scientists, the elderly, minorities, etc. Looking ahead to searches, are there
policy implications from this? The definition of interest groups is never ending and the population can
be partitioned indefinitely; what is obtained? One hopes for sensitivity to one of the University's central
agendas, but that is different from getting people on a committee and expecting them to carry a particular
flag.
There have to be people from the various groups that will be affected by the choice being made,
said another individual, in order to have viability with the sections. Liberal arts people will be upset if an
engineer is hired and they had no say in the decision; the major ACADEMIC groups must be represented.
If the focus were on quality, said one committee member, that would make a difference in the
validity and vitality of searches. This goes to the job definition.
One individual argued that the requirement of familiarity with the University of Minnesota should
not be in the position description; it was sort-of-but-not-really-a-national-search. Anyone outside the
University read it as a set-up for an incumbent. Within the University, people are surprised, and also
assume it must be for someone. Moreover, once Vice President Hopkins left and people realized the
"insider" was not a candidate, there was only a week before the extended deadline, so it would have been
almost impossible for an external candidate to have gotten into the pool. This returns to the issue of the
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
11
job description.
There was a lot of talking past each other in the discussion last week, said one committee member;
some people referred to management experience while others referred to academic quality. How do
search committees tackle this, when the provost's position requires both? It would not be reasonable to
appoint someone with high academic qualifications but who was incompetent as a manager. Setting
aside the use of rhetoric as a debating ploy, there is an issue here.
One committee member recalled that James Conant, regarded by some as the best academic leader
the United States has had, went straight from being a professor to being President of Harvard. There
have been other advances. There are many such people who would be vetoed because they had no
administrative experience--but they have the vision and they know what the job is about. That is BY
FAR the most important thing, rather than the ability to read spread sheets.
The search committee saw a lot of candidates who had the administrative experience; they were
just rotating between universities. They had the managerial experience but they didn't have the vision
and knowledge of the job. One had the impression that their interest in the position was as one further
stage in their professional career, a jumping-off place for a presidency.
Yet one had the feeling from the Board of Regents that that is what they wanted. They said they
wanted management experience. Then FCC must emphasize the point just made, it was said; academic
leadership does not come from experienced managers.
One committee member recalled watching faculty governance for a number of years; what was so
dismaying about this search was that the Board members and many administrators believed that
experience in faculty governance counts for nothing. For the first time, it became clear the disdain that
many of these people have for years and years of experience on faculty committees and working on
difficult tasks for the University; they do not regard this kind of experience as managerial. To the
contrary; someone who is an assistant to an assistant to a dean at a fifth rate college IS seen as having
managerial experience, while someone who has served on the University's most important committees,
who has tackled difficult issues, is seen to have no kind of experience relevant to this position. This is a
change, on the part of certain members of the administration and in the colleges, but also on the part of
the Board. People in faculty governance were never held in astoundingly high regard, but there was more
respect in the past.
In addition, the University will have trouble getting good and busy faculty members to serve on
any more of these committees unless they are supported and defended by the faculty governance system-when it participated in the appointment of the search committee--and the Consultative Committee in
particular. They must also be supported by the administration. This search got to the point that search
committee members told the General Counsel that every member of the committee had a reputation to
protect, and that if there were witnesses to the slander, or if any of the charges had been written, thus
constituting libel, many of the search committee members would take action--because what was being
said was actionable. The General Counsel understood what was being said, and he may have cautioned
some of those involved that these were actionable. All of the search committees are loyal to the
University, it was said, but if there are no reassurances that are needed, people will NEVER participate
on another of these search committees. The governance system must stand up for the search committees
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
12
and the administration must not allow members of the administration to vilify them in the performance of
their duties. This happened; one member of the administration accused the search committee, in effect,
of subverting equal opportunity. Someone must take some action, after investigation. People cannot
stand by and allow this to happen.
The search committee made no move without checking with the EEO office in advance, said
another committee member. There were also numerous occasions when they talked to legal counsel, so
watched all of this very carefully. There are in some cases letters providing legal opinions.
One committee member expressed thanks for the remarks about the experiences search committee
member confronted. On the point about managerial experience, FCC should address it, because it has
arisen in the past as well. Professor Adams supported the search committee when he talked to reporters,
but FCC needs to do more than that.
Another committee member took gentle issue with the declaration that faculty will not serve on
these committees in the future, and argued that this experience was a challenge that faculty would take on
again if they had to. There is a principle involved; one dean has already resigned, and there may be
others who disagree with the result. This is the start of a faculty effort to say "we DON'T want
administrative types, we want scholars with vision." But there must be support for the committee from
the FCC and from the administration.
One committee member said he had the impression that several outside candidates had gotten wind
of the interest of the Board of Regents in micromanaging, and that this had been an adverse factor in the
search. FCC discussed this issue with the chair of the Board of Regents, Professor Adams recalled, and
he related the gist and nature of the discussion that had been held with Regent Keffeler. The subject also
came up when the review committee of the Board made its report. It is not a surprise that candidates
would express concern. The position that FCC should take, it was said, is that the Board should either
hire a president and support the president, or it should get another president. The main issue is that the
University has a president who represents the academic mission to the Board and who represents the
Board to the faculty and the academic enterprise. In order for the president to succeed in the job, he has
to have support from both sides. But the Board is not supposed to be messing around in internal affairs.
It is easily documentable that the Board dockets now and 15 years ago demonstrate that they do less now
than they used to. That, however, is different from saying they should withdraw from a range of things
that are now routinely placed before them. The Board is asked to consider a wide array of things that
perhaps it should not. This may be an example of something the faculty should speak vigorously about.
One thing that Dr. Hopkins told the search committee about, it was reported, was that at many
institutions the Regents deal only with the President; they do not talk to deans or other individuals. That
would require significant cultural change, but that is the point of this discussion. There is a longstanding tradition here, with overlapping Board membership; unless the Board chair says something will
change, it will not. Someone would have to speak to the chair, because she is the one who recommends
the agenda. As with many organizations in which one serves as an officer, one asks the executive director
how things are done, and "before you know it, you're doing things the way they did them last year."
There was subgroup on the search committee that concluded the University needed a provost in
place by May. As a result, the committee did not follow a number of the procedures that are traditionally
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
13
used in searches. The reason for discussing them is to think about how to make searches more efficient
in the future. There was a point at which the search had been narrowed down to 21 candidates; they were
getting ready to seek letters of recommendation. Letters of recommendation are basically meaningless, it
was said, because they are NOT letters of evaluation. The search committee decided not to seek letters,
and instead formed a subcommittee of four. Those four people talked to the deans and others and asked
for information any of them could provide on any of the 21 candidates. The reason for that change in
strategy was that, just as faculty know their peers at other institutions, the committee believed that it
could tap internal resources because the deans and other administrators would know people at other
institutions. After checking with the legal staff to be sure the process was acceptable and that they could
speak with anyone at the University, they did so. That allowed the search committee to narrow the list of
21 down to 11 within a week. Instead of spending three weeks waiting for letters of recommendation,
and another period of time while an 18-member committee read them, they simply sought information
and acted on it. And this was probably better information than what would have been obtained from
letters, observed another committee member.
This meant the committee was able to act much more quickly. The subcommittee report allowed
ten candidates to be removed from the search. They then interviewed the internal candidates and external
candidates in a short period of time, and were able to come to closure within a month. They were very
cautious and concerned about not compromising any external candidates. The procedure they used, it
was said, avoided compromising them; the minute letters are sought, the candidacy becomes public.
Some candidates asked the search committee NOT to request letters, because of their current positions.
The search committee discussed with the President a procedure that it never used because of how
the search turned out. It proposed to bring in a subset of semi-finalists who would talk with everyone at
the University except the President. As long as the candidates have no interaction with the appointing
authority, they are not public candidates. The search committee thought this a helpful mechanism to
keep well-qualified external candidates in the pool without compromising them. That is important if the
University wants good people, many of whom will back out when faced with the glare of publicity.
The search committee also talked with the President about what to do if it discovered one
outstanding external candidate; it proposed to provide him candidates one at a time. They were looking
at the notion that they would bring together all the resources in the University--people in Morrill Hall, the
deans, the search committee--for a round of evaluations before publicity was necessary. In doing that,
and in bypassing the letters of recommendation, the search committee was able to reduce the amount of
time needed by a factor of three.
Is it customary that the Board of Regents are involved in these choices, asked one committee
member? The person serves at the pleasure of the President, not the Board; the President serves at the
pleasure of the Board. There have been plenty of incidents, going back many years, when senior officers
were appointed, representations were made to Board members explicitly on behalf of specific candidates,
or in opposition to candidates. People went to the Board and said what they had to say. Board members
react differently to those representations, but this does happen.
This search was politicized, said another committee member, because someone wrote very publicly
to the Board. That is rare; usually it is telephone calls. When it is that public, it is hard for the Board to
ignore it.
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
14
It is easier to train a leader to be a manager than to train a manager to be a leader, commented one
committee member. That will only change, said another, when the University changes most of the
administration it currently has. People like people like themselves; at present the University has a group-not the President--down into the ranks of associates to whomever like that. These ranks need to be filled
by faculty members on some rotating basis instead of building this infrastructure. It is CONVENIENT
for the faculty, and at one level it is their fault, because people do not want to do those jobs. So the
University gets people who are professional, who move around. The faculty is at fault for not taking the
jobs and it is convenient if they can get people to fill them. But then those are the decision-makers.
There was a very strong sentiment, not only among the search committee but also among those
who wrote to it, to do away with the CEO mentality. "WE NEED FACULTY representation," someone
who knows what faculty do, someone who has an appreciation for research and teaching and who also
has viability and credibility as a scholar.
There is definitely a sentiment out there, said another, that this kind of talk is old-fashioned and
that the future requires managers. It is accurate to say that faculty are partly at fault, because they do not
want the jobs but then complain that it's not a faculty member in the position. One way the committee
might try to address that problem is to do more in the way of identifying future academic leaders and
training them, sending them to workshops in the summer or whatever it takes, so there are more faculty in
a position to take on these roles and the University need not look outside. The University could do much
more to develop its own leadership.
FCC has talked about this a number of ways, it was said; investing in its personnel is something
the University is not very good at. Perhaps academic institutions generally are not very good at it; big
companies do it all the time. It is assumed that once somebody has their degree and obtained tenure, they
know what they're doing--and then when people become chair or head or associate dean, it is learned that
they DON'T know what they're doing--and then people wonder why. The University must invest in
people in order for them to understand what it is they are expected to do. Some of the legal headaches
the University faces can be traced directly to people not really knowing how to do what they were
charged to do. Then the "crap hits the fan" and the President and vice presidents spend one or two days a
week trying to get the University out of legal messes. This should not happen.
What must really be done, and the University can control this itself to some extent, is to find a way
in which searches can be conducted consistently and with good staff support to the chair. That principle
MUST emerge from this. People would be more willing to chair committees when they know they'll
have support. The process will go more smoothly. That is one way for faculty influence can be
increased--by a procedural change. Professor Adams agreed and said that this item is on the list of things
to make firm recommendations about, because it will recur and will avoid pitfalls in the future.
There is another side of this, said one committee member, and that is to assert "what is the
business we are in?" As was said, there is this CEO mentality, "that you just run universities, you tell
people what to do and they're supposed to go do it." The University's publics need to be reminded that
this is not the U. S. Army and it's not General Dynamics; it's a different kind of enterprise. If people
forget that, the faculty is the only group that will remind them.
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
15
One committee member noted that this issue of the CEO mentality has also been a concern to the
Committee on Faculty Affairs. Not in those same terms, but in the divergence of values between the
administration and the faculty. Faculty have longer-term value judgments about what is going to
influence the University and the academic enterprise; administrators tend to have a shorter-term
mentality. They are moving from job to job and need another notch in the belt. That is not healthy for an
institution like this. One can have serious concerns about the administration and Board of Regents when
this occurs. SCFA has identified this as one of the reasons why faculty morale is as it is.
These searches would work a lot better if the University ensured there were equal opportunity in
them. An issue that is particularly rankling is the requirement that the search committee fill out forms
stating why it turned down any candidates who were either women or minorities, but permitting it to
"throw white males on the scrap heap without any justification." There were a number of cases where
white males wrote very careful and thoughtful philosophy statements, and others where minority
individuals chose not to. If the University wants to be even-handed and consistent, the search committee
should have to justify, in writing, in the same consistent way, the decision it makes on EVERY
candidate, independent of their race or gender. This is a polarizing, silent issue in this; one of the reason
that the President may have lacked faculty support is that he has walked away from the faculty and the
faculty have walked away from him on this issue. The process needs to be even-handed and consistent in
its treatment of everybody.
One committee member responded that it would be better not to have to write down the details on
ANYBODY. As long as the committee has to write why a minority or woman candidate would not
qualify for an assistant to the dean position, then it ought to have to justify the decisions it makes on
people who were qualified and who worked very hard to convince it they are viable candidates.
Something needs to be developed along these lines, because the University is now in a public
environment where routines that were taken for granted ten years ago are no longer taken for granted.
The world is changing and the University has to acknowledge that--and not wait for things to happen but
think things through and articulate a defensible point of view about how to do things right. Doing them
consistently is what is important, responded another committee member.
The search committee had to quantify the pool of candidates, and huge numbers of women turned
out. It turned out that ANY woman who had made full professor was counted. Even worse, the pool of
woman candidates was supposed to be 34%, but on this campus, the number of women who are full
professors in the provostal area is more like 10%. The search committee questioned this, and was told
that the pool included not only any woman professor, it included any woman who is any administrative
or teaching position all the way down to community colleges. The pool was not just from women at
comparable institutions, and the search committee was told it had to achieve that number. There were
people applying from institutions TOTALLY different from this one, including presidents of institutions
the size of a large department at the University.
Several senior faculty in one of the colleges have said they will no longer serve on University-wide
search committees, because they believe the way searches are carried out are demeaning. The process
needs to be even-handed and consistent. The University wants qualified white males applying for these
positions, along with everybody else.
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
16
How should committees in the future think about the Regents-endorsed, administration-supported
U2000 agenda item called diversity, asked one committee member? The Regents are legally the
University; if they say this is something the University is going to pay attention to, how does that
translate into a search?
Maybe what is needed are more targets of opportunity so that the pool can be increased at the
lower levels, and then people move up. To say that the University is going to pull in a senior person, or a
person at a senior position, is hard when the pool is small. Perhaps the pool should be built up in house.
The University also has to make moving into these appointments more attractive. This came up
last week, said another; one was tempted to stand up and say "listen, these are crummy jobs, and you're
lucky you have qualified people who are willing to do them." It's not like people are standing in line.
Maybe there is an unconscious carryover; when one is a CEO of a big company, whose salaries are
published annually in the newspaper, people can see that the company lost money but the CEO got a
raise. There was an article recently in one of the national newspapers about one CEO and the "glass
floor. No matter how many times your company goes bankrupt or how much screw up major league, you
never lose." This is not the case in academia; these are hard jobs that require seven days a week, 12-14
hours a day, on call all the time, and not a moment's peace. Being a full professor at a major university is
a very good job compared to these.
The difference between the internal candidates and the external candidates, said one committee
member, was that the external ones were professional administrators who wanted to advance their
careers. The internal candidates were doing it out of sheer loyalty to the University; they worry about the
future of the University.
The question is "what are we about?" and the large question is the survival of this institution as a
major research operation in the face of what is going to be a melt-down in higher education over the next
ten years. That is the major agenda item: "how do we maintain the quality we have, and build on it." If
one starts thinking that way, one has to be cagey about public proclamations that are unfulfillable.
Diversity is one of those. The University is NOT going to be able to meet the goals that the Regents have
set for diversity, short of a miracle. The University must be careful not to sabotage or destroy the
strengths it has by being taken in by these public proclamations. It is important that it stand on its
tiptoes, like everyone else, and make the effort, but it must be realistic about where it puts its resources.
It comes down to having realistic goals in diversity and not handicapping itself by trying to do things it
cannot possibly do. But it cannot be singled out for being less successful than other institutions.
The entire planning process that departments and colleges have gone through include statements
from second-rate departments that "we will be the best department of such-and-such in five years!" What
a crock! How can they do it? It takes a long time, and it takes more than money. This is the same sort of
thing; it is unrealistic, so the goals are pushed off into the future.
The committee was one of the strengths of this search, said one individual; it was absolutely
marvelous. Search committee members may have seen things they could have done better, but externally
it was perfect. This was a tough position to get someone for, and the University will learn empirically if
it got the right person. The process by which he was identified, however, was something that can always
be cited. The University can be proud of what the search committee did.
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
17
There is another issue that is getting lost, said one committee member. Despite the concern about
regental micromanaging, they are concerned. These are dangerous times and the University does have to
change. The Board worries about circling wagons; they see the faculty as conservative people who want
to keep doing things the way they've done them. For the institution to survive, things DO have to change.
To then come up with internal candidates--which is the only way this change will work--makes it
understandable that they are a little nervous that there may be more of the same. The faculty must
reassure the Board that they KNOW things are different.
By picking internal candidates, both qualified academic scholars, the search committee WAS
changing things, it was said.
If the faculty are going to call for change, they must change the way they behave. One things it
must stop doing is demanding more faculty. One of the reasons faculty demand more faculty, the cynic
would say, is to make up for all the bad tenure decisions that were made in the past.
Professor Adams reported that he has been saying in many ways that the University has an
enormous amount of resources pouring into it, but it does not know how to stop doing things that have
outlived their usefulness or the costs of which outweigh the return. The faculty are not good at figuring
that out, and the Regents are on the right track in some respects when the ask what it is about faculty that
they seem incapable of managing in the face of resource constraint? As was suggested, maybe there is a
need to take a sharper look at teaching people how to be university professors--in addition to being the
world's greatest economist or physicist. Train a chemist is not the same as training someone to be a
responsible university professor or department head or dean. They have to go together, but the
University does not have enough people who understand that point. There is just anger. In the 1960s,
when the University was growing like topsy, it got bigger and better by getting bigger and better. The
terms are different now.
One committee member recalled a conversation with the President at which the faculty were
stressing the necessity of closing entire units that were no longer useful. The President said he did not
know which ones to close. It is for that reason the search committee thought he needed a faculty
member, who DOES know which units to close. Professional administrators have no basis for deciding
whether X is better than Y.
In similar discussions, recounted one committee member, faculty members have said clearly--but
off the record--that they know perfectly well which units ought to get smaller, which departments are no
longer needed, which could be consolidated, even which colleges might not be around in five years. But
one can't use a meat axe; there has to be thought about the directions in which the University will go and
how resources will be redeployed. And, as in the case of Waseca, the University must facilitate the
movement of people from one line of responsibility to another and given them a transition, with an
investment in them. The University does not have to demoralize people in order to get them to do a new
job. Some who have gone to seed in the prime of their life might be much happier if they were made
useful again. These kinds of issues the Regents are correctly concerned about; the faculty may let them
down by not acknowledging that they also see them as an issue that they will do something about. When
these issues are mentioned to the Board, they hit a responsive chord. It is one thing to say these things as
a faculty committee member; it is another to translate it into action. The way that the search committee
Faculty Consultative Committee
April 10, 1995
18
solved the problem of recommending provost candidates was on the mark; the University would have
been well-served by either of them. The search committee did a very fine job.
Professor Adams thanked search committee members and FCC members for coming to the
meeting, and promised to produce a record of the meeting that would say things that the faculty wished to
say. He adjourned the meeting at 3:00.
-- Gary Engstrand
University of Minnesota