Dive Brief:
- The search for a new Western Carolina University chancellor came to a standstill after Tom Fetzer, member of the board of governors, independently hired a search firm to question the leading chancellor candidate’s background, according to Inside Higher Ed.
- Fetzer said he hired the search firm in an effort to protect the board from making a bad hiring decision. Fellow board members criticized him for overstepping his boundaries, not following established protocol and breaching confidentiality in what was supposed to be a closed search.
- The university community and others argue the closed search for a new chancellor has become more about protecting political interests rather than choosing what is best for Western Carolina. Brian Railsback, chair emeritus of the university’s faculty senate, said it makes sense for the search to remain closed in the early stages of choosing candidates. However, once finalists have been chosen, there should be more transparency on the final candidates so that the university-at-large can participate in the process.
Dive Insight:
The average tenure of a college president dropped to six and a half years in 2016, down from seven years in 2011. Meanwhile, process for finding a suitable president can take six months or more, and the first year of new president’s tenure is spent learning about the college or university. This creates a dearth of leadership in higher education that is prepared for the challenge of making sound decisions that serve the university community as a whole. That's why Education Dive named hiring presidents without relevant leadership experience one of the most frightening trends in higher education.
In the case of Western Carolina University, the search process brings up questions not only about credibility, but also about transparency and shared governance. While administrators have the onus on them to search for and endorse a qualified leader, it can be difficult for the governing members of the institution to remember the value of shared decision-making — and the perception a lack of shared governance can give to other campus community members. President Raynard Kington told Education Dive explains that the culture of higher education often breeds an every-man-for-himself mentality, which is the biggest hurdle to embracing a shared-governance mindset.
"There is a tiny little slice of every single constituency that’s not going to be nice, that’s going to send you really mean emails and say really mean things,” said Kington, adding that shared governance on campus was based on a system of “relationships guiding interactions [...] toward a transactional model, where every single thing becomes [political] so it moves away from this relationship."
"This is largely determined by culture, and culture’s a hard thing to change and to establish,” said Kington.