Some presidential search advisory committee members will observe the final stages of the search and the top candidate for the position will visit campus before a vote is taken, the State College Board has said.
The original plan called for members of the search advisory to send the names of final candidates to the College Board. Then, only members of the College Board would participate in and observe the consideration of the final candidates, which will include interviews.
Under the new plan, the College Board search committee will invite representatives from the search advisory committee to observe the consideration after the advisory committee has given the board the finalists’ names, commissioner Tom Meredith said.
Also in the original plan, no campus visits would occur at any stage during the process. The final choice would be announced after the College Board voted.
In the altered plan, the foremost candidate will visit campus before the vote takes place, Meredith said.
A memo from Ruth Prescott, chair of the advisory committee, on the presidential search Web site, said this candidate “will visit our campus to meet with a broad range of MSU constituencies for interaction and dialogue prior to the board’s final vote.”
Robert Holland Faculty Senate President Mark Goodman, who has objected to secrecy in the search, said the search advisory committee members who are invited to work with the search committe need to be people the university trusts and need to have a real role in the process.
He said that after meeting with College Board search committee chair Ed Blakeslee, Prescott and Meredith Thursday, he had the impression that they wanted to approach the search process as a partnership between the IHL and the university community.
“I’m pleased with this first step, but there are steps that have to follow, and those future steps will have to reflect that partnership that I hope has been established,” he said.
“The next step in the process of building this partnership will be in the naming of the group that works with the IHL, and the third step will be to see what role they play in the interviewing in the IHL,” he said.
“What we’ve tried to say all along is … it’s a brand new process for the board, and this process will maximize the candidates we can bring to State,” Meredith said.
“I believe the process will maintain at least internal confidentiality,” but the changes will maintain the integrity of the process, Goodman said.
Meredith said he hopes the altered process will quell feelings of under-representation from various groups.
Goodman said his goal throughout the process has been to find a president who the university and the Starkville community could stand behind.
He said the Faculty Senate still plans to communicate with canididates for the position and other interested parties through its Web site, www.facultysenate.msstate.edu.