Your Tuesday editorial cited the [Institutions of Higher Learning] board’s search consultant, Greenwood/Asher and Associates; this group handed [IHL Commissioner] Tom Meredith to the board, which then quickly transferred much of its authority to him.
In 2005, the board hired Meredith, though he had multiple difficulties as higher ed panjandrum in Georgia.
Even before then, the board seemed to persist in believing in its own omniscience.
For example, it hired Shelby Thames as [University of Southern Mississippi] president in 2001 despite overwhelming (90 percent) USM faculty opposition. Thames proceeded to saddle taxpayers with around $750,000 in legal fees, staff time, travel and other expenses and settlement charges because of a stupid, needless decision he made concerning two faculty members.
The board obviously liked Greenwood’s work in the Meredith case so much that IHL hired the firm again for the 2006 (Foglesong) search and the recent [Mississippi] Valley State search, two more embarrassments.
I urge The Reflector staff to obtain copies of all contracts the IHL board has had with all search consultants, especially with the Greenwood operation, and determine how much the board’s search consultants have cost the state since 2000.
Although the outcome of MSU’s presidential search is undetermined at this point, outcomes of future searches will have a direct relationship to the board’s credibility, which many folks, including legislators, now hold in low esteem. One way for IHL to correct the problem: open, transparent searches.
For starters, here are a few specifics. First, search committees should not exceed 25 persons, a majority of whom would be tenured faculty, elected by tenured faculty, with the Faculty Senate president chairing the committee. This committee would be solely responsible for the search. No more expensive, ineffective headhunters.
Second, all completed applications should be placed on reserve in the university library for open scrutiny.
The committee’s top five choices would be invited to the campus for interviews, at least two of which would be open to faculty, two to students, two to staff and two to the general public. The committee would collect evaluations from each group and forward the results, together with its recommendations, listed in rank order, to the IHL board.
If the board does not select and hire from this list, the search automatically reopens.
Finally, now that Tom Meredith has galloped off into the sunset, [there are] a few questions:
1) Did any board member ever challenge or demand proof to support Meredith’s mantras that “open searches limit the pool of qualified candidates” and especially “applicants’ current position would be jeopardized if their institutions knew they were applying elsewhere?”
2) Did Meredith ever cite a specific example of an institution that had suffered as a direct, explicit consequence of an open search? If not, did the board demand such information? If not, why not?
Yours for open, transparent, credible searches.
Clyde V. Williams is a retired English professor from Mississippi State and a former member of the Faculty Senate.