As the search is ongoing for the University of Idaho’s new president, many groups seem to be underrepresented or not represented at all at the negotiation table. Though not every college, member of the university or even people in the Moscow community can be represented in one group of people, there has to be a bigger selection, or a larger variation in the types of people tasked with the role of finding the new president.
Based on Idaho law, a presidential search committee must contain a minimum of two state board members, two university employees, one being a faculty member, two alumni, one member of the institution’s foundation and an at large community member. As it stands, the committee does meet these requirements but there is a shocking number of similarities in the people selected in the committee.
Seven of the nine committee members have some sort of business degree, or attachment to the UI College of Business.
There is a lack of representation to other colleges that make UI what it is. While it is difficult to find representatives from all of the colleges, there should be some sort of representation. Such as, placing the chair of faculty senate as a representative in the UI search committee could give a direct pipeline of faculty opinion into the search.
The presidential search committee has also been enlisting the help of subcommittees, that will “help with the decision-making process.”
Though there’s value to the student subcommittee lead by Associated Students of the University of Idaho President, Lance Butikofer, and the administration and faculty subcommittee, lead by Michele Barlet and Annie Exline, the representation shown by these subcommittees should be mirrored in the actual presidential committee.
Students and faculty have the biggest stake when it comes to who is the next UI president, not alumni, business leaders or people inside of the department of education. Though their input is important, they do not have to live, work and learn at the University of Idaho, and have a significant distance from the problems faced by students and faculty.
Not having a spot on the main UI search committee for a student, whether that be the ASUI president or another student leader, is the greatest failure of the UI presidential search committee.
Though it would be only one person, the lived experiences of a current UI student could express the amount of financial, emotional and societal pressures faced by the average UI student at the time of this major transition.
The search committee has also enlisted the help of Korn Ferry, a global organizational consulting firm to assist with finding the next UI president, which is an odd choice. The work that Korn Ferry does is finding executive heads, such as CEOs or CBOs, for fortune 500 companies, not finding the future president of a university.
Though there have been cases of Korn Ferry being used to find university presidents, using a consulting firm degrades the value of the committee itself, and of the subcommittees that are being formed.
Another concern with the formulation of the committee is the percieved push toward making UI a business or attached to business interests. UI is a premier state university, and its leadership should be looked at from an experiential and educational standpoint, not from the standpoint of finances and business.
Hopefully, the intent of this shift is to make the state legislators find value in UI, and higher education as a whole. But making UI run as a business should not be the route taken by the presidential committee when finding our new president.
This is especially visualized by the inclusion of SEL president, Dave Whitehead. Though he is an important leader in the Moscow/Pullman community, he is not the most representative of the Moscow community from a ground level. To be honest, does Dave Whitehead know about the lived experiences of students, staff and faculty at the University of Idaho?
The search committee does an alright job meeting the demographic outlook of UI. Representatives such as Mary Hasenoerl, Mya Pronschinske Groza and Chandra Zenner Ford, show an attempt to break the cookie cutter mold of the committee, but more representation throughout the university should have been made a higher priority.
Though selections have already been made, hopefully the UI presidential search committee actually listens to the work of the subcommittees. The Administration and Faculty subcommittee and the student subcommittee are sections of the UI community that will face the highest consequences when it comes to the choice of the president.
The pivotal decision of choosing a new UI president will have an effect on the reputation of UI, the value of student’s degrees and the livelihood of faculty, more than any of those other groups The best type of marketing for anything is word of mouth and good experiences.
If a failure is made due to ignoring the voices of students and faculty in the choice of the new UI president, students will not tell their juniors to come to UI.
Josie Adjanohoun can be reached at [email protected]