UA Board of Regents demands secrecy in presidential search
The University of Alaska Board of Regents has adopted a plan to prevent the general public from knowing the identities of finalists for the UA presidency.
This means that many people with an interest in the future of Alaska’s university will be prohibited from knowing anything about the three-to-five finalists the presidential search committee plans to name in April.
Since this is a process akin to the College of Cardinals selecting a pope, perhaps the public will be informed that a new president has been named with the emission of white smoke from a chimney on the Butrovich Building.
What bothers me the most is the idea that people who talk to and learn something about the finalists will be asked to sign nondisclosure agreements regarding what should be a public process.
“All individuals involved in the candidate selection process will be required to sign non-disclosure agreements to protect the identity of each candidate and any potentially personally identifiable information about them. Feedback from the various stakeholders involved in the interview process will be provided back to the Board of Regents for its consideration,” Scott Jepsen, the chair of the regents and the chair of the UA presidential search committee said in a February 16 letter.
Jepsen writes that the idea of excluding the public from even knowing the names of the candidates was “made thoughtfully, with the goal of balancing openness with the practical realities of university presidential searches today and UA’s long-term interests.”
The search committee includes Jepsen, Joey Crum, Karen Perdue, Bonnie Brennan, Austin Cranford, Jackie Cason, Charlene Stern, Russell Dick, Erec Isaacson, Dave Karp, Katie Koester, Meg Nordale, Joe Usibelli, Jr. and Conrad Woodhead.
There are many talented Alaskans on the search committee, but the selection of the finalists for UA president should not be left to the 14 people above and to select groups of others who are willing to sign nondisclosure agreements.
The university says it settled on secrecy at the advice of its consultant, WittKieffer, and claims that “many public universities now conduct their senior leadership searches” in a way that prevents the public from knowing who the finalists are.
There will not be public forums and interviews with the finalists.
“In recent years, highly qualified candidates - especially sitting presidents and chancellors - have declined to participate in searches with a fully public evaluation process for finalists due to concerns about professional risk if they are not selected for the role,” Jepsen writes.
There are certainly risks to that traditional approach. But by setting up a system in which the finalists chosen by the search committee are never exposed to the broader public, there is a risk that the search committee and the regents will make the wrong choice.
The candidates will meet with representatives of faculty, staff, students as well as university leaders and some community leaders. It appears that all of them will be asked to sign nondisclosure agreements.
On the WittKieffer website, Texas-based partner Ryan Crawford writes in a 2024 column that one-third of the presidential searches the company has completed over the last four years, only one-third were open searches.
“The majority of those were at public institutions where state regulations required that multiple finalists meet with the campus community,” he wrote.
“Comparing candidate pools across dozens of searches, my fellow consultants and I can say, unequivocally, that an open search narrows the candidate pool. But that does not mean that a great candidate cannot be found within that smaller pool. An institution simply has to weigh that reality against how its campus culture values openness in a leadership search,” he said.
While Jepsen writes that WittKieffer “recommended” the plan to keep the names of finalists secret and the regents agreed to this method, Crawford writes that the best approach for one university is not necessarily the best approach for all.
“Our responsibility as search consultants is to clearly present both the available options and their potential impacts. But it’s ultimately the trustees and those leading the search who must decide and communicate their rationale to the campus,” Crawford writes.
Here is a study reviewing presidential searches conducted in secret and in the open. The study notes two incidents that related to Alaska and former UA officials.
“Despite the common argument being that failed presidential candidates will tarnish their reputation by being publicly revealed, the data refutes this. Over half of the unsuccessful candidates we studied went on to other presidencies or positions of importance at other institutions.”
“For our study’s purpose, ‘open’ searches means at least two finalists were named, while ‘closed’ means only the chosen candidate was announced and publicly vetted. For example, while the University of Alaska-Anchorage had four finalists, they were privately brought to campus to meet with constituencies and their names were not released. Only one name — the ultimate choice, Cathy Sandeen — was revealed to the public, so that search qualifies as ‘closed,’” wrote The Brechner Center in 2020.
“It is for policymakers to consider whether the modest increase in the odds of hiring a sitting college president is worth the other sacrifices made when presidents are hired without community participation. As seen in the recent failed search at the University of Wisconsin, where campus stakeholders revolted against the closed-door hire of Alaska’s Jim Johnsen — causing him to decline the presidency after accepting it — there is diminishing public tolerance for secretive hires, doubly so in the ‘Me Too’ era as the importance of thorough background-checking comes into sharper focus.”
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