THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 22, 1996 TAG: 9607220041
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 162 lines
Norfolk State University last week started doing something for the first time since Gerald Ford ran the country: Looking for a new president.
On Tuesday, a day after NSU President Harrison B. Wilson announced he would retire next July, board Rector L.D. Britt laid down the ground rules for the search for Wilson's successor. Britt wants all resumes in by Sept. 1 and plans to announce the new president by January.
Colleges are unusual organizations where debate and shared decision-making are important ends in themselves. That poses some tricky questions for presidential searches: Whom do you put on the search committee? Do you require the finalists to go public?
Typical of the contention in academic life, there isn't one universally accepted approach. Consider two experts' reactions to NSU's modus operandi so far.
``It sounds as if they're going about it in the right way,'' says Robert Birnbaum, professor of higher education at the University of Maryland at College Park. Birnbaum likes, among other things, the makeup of Norfolk State's search committee and the timetable.
Or: ``It's obvious they're not following the method of intelligence,'' says James L. Fisher, a Baltimore consultant who helped Old Dominion University select James V. Koch as president in 1990. Fisher faults NSU for not hiring a consultant - and for the makeup of its search panel.
These are the major issues in college presidential searches and how those who have sought - and been sought - suggest Norfolk State should proceed:
The search committee. On Tuesday, Britt named a 15-member panel, including five board members, two NSU administrators, two alumni, two professors, two students, one dean and one staff member. It sounded good to Birnbaum: ``I think the involvement of the various constituencies will make it easier for whoever's selected to enter office and be seen as somebody properly selected.''
But Fisher said the committee should draw most of its members from the Board of Visitors, which ultimately hires the president. ``They're the ones who aren't deeply politicized,'' he said. A committee too divided among special interests often will not select the best candidate, Fisher said.
In ODU's search, the nine-member committee included five board members. Richard F. Barry III, rector of ODU's board at the time, said the makeup of the panel drove home an important point: ``There should be no question that the board has ultimate power. . . . The board is accountable. If the board makes a bad decision, you go to the board to try to get it fixed.''
A consultant or not? Britt ruled out using a consultant or search firm, saying Norfolk State could handle the job itself. Virginia Wesleyan College didn't use one either when it hired William T. ``Billy'' Greer Jr. in 1992. ``We're a small institution, and we're quite familial in the way we operate,'' said theater professor Rick Hite, who sat on Wesleyan's search team. ``We felt we could do it the way we wanted to do it better by doing it ourselves.''
But George Mason University, the Virginia college that most recently completed a presidential search, employed a Northern Virginia firm to help select Alan G. Merten, a Cornell University dean who took over on July 1.
Anita Taylor, a communication professor who served as chairwoman of the search team, said the consultant provided critical help - from pointers on leading committee meetings, some of which were open to the public, to assistance in ``sealing the deal'' with Merten.
``Lots of us have hired lots of professors, but not any one of us has hired a president, and that's a very different activity. The person (consultant) has been through this many times, knows all of the things that can happen, right and wrong.''
An evaluation of the university. Fisher, who said he has worked in dozens of searches, said one of the most valuable assets he can provide is a report assessing the school before the search. ``It gives you a profile of the institution, but it also tells you the kind of person they need.'' At the University of Pittsburgh, which Fisher said was suffering a leadership void, the basic message of a recent report was: ``You need a charismatic SOB.''
His 1989 report for ODU called for a president who could work with politicians and improve relations with minorities on campus - both areas where Koch has won praise. It also suggested several changes, many of which have since been made: from adding flowers and signs to improve the campus' appearance to whittling down a ``top-heavy administration.''
Barry, who is vice chairman of Landmark Communications, said the report helped draw the most appropriate applicants to ODU. ``It gave the candidates a very candid assessment of what they were getting into,'' Barry said. ``Some candidates relished the challenge of tackling the agenda and others did not.''
Birnbaum, however, discounted the importance of such reports. ``I think institutional needs change,'' he said. ``If you hire someone to do a specific job this year, two years later you'll find you need someone who can do something else.''
At George Mason, even with a consultant, the search panel decided against a formal evaluation. ``We knew what we wanted,'' Taylor said. ``We didn't want to change directions.''
When to go public. Perhaps the most heated question in searches is whether to reveal the names of finalists on campus and require them to attend open forums. Britt did not broach that question publicly, but in an interview said he leaned toward the open approach.
Fisher and Koch argue strenuously against it in ``Presidential Leadership,'' a book they are co-writing. ``Not only are good candidates lost in this way,'' they write, ``but personal interviews, including public interviews, are one of the least effective variables in predicting job success.''
Greer, Virginia Wesleyan's president, said he probably wouldn't have applied for the job if he had had to face public scrutiny in the final round. ``People just don't want their names to be thrown about all over the countryside. And they don't want to be marked as someone who was a finalist but didn't make it, because quite often it doesn't have anything at all to do with one's ability. It has more to do with the chemistry in that particular situation.''
But Birnbaum, the Maryland professor, said it's a good idea to open up the process at the end. ``At the time you get down to finalists,'' he said, ``you can justify going to them and saying, `If you're serious about this, you have to make a public commitment.' That kind of openness leads to a successful presidency.''
At George Mason, each of the finalists' names was e-mailed across campus, Taylor said. Each met with separate groups of business leaders, students, faculty and administrators. That was crucial to making the right choice, Taylor said.
``Yes, you will lose candidates, and yes, it was worth it,'' she said. ``Under no circumstances would I suggest a president ought to be hired who has not come to campus, been seen by the campus community and talked to the campus community in public forums. You see a person in ways a search committee can never see them. You see a president under fire, and presidents are going to be under fire.''
Requiring a doctorate. Britt said Norfolk State would insist that its next president have a doctorate. Not all schools do. Virginia college presidents lacking Ph.D.s include Virginia State's Eddie Moore, a former accountant, and Christopher Newport's Paul S. Trible Jr., a former U.S. senator and lawyer.
Birnbaum said a Ph.D. is a reasonable expectation: ``In order to be effective in higher education, you have to know something about what higher education is about, how it does its business. And unless you have faculty support, you can't be very effective. Faculty will be looking at people who share their values.''
Yet Fisher said NSU might be eliminating some strong candidates. He noted that Bill Friday, a respected former president of the University of North Carolina system, never received a doctorate. George Mason hired a president with a Ph.D. in computer science, but ``we were fairly adamant in wanting to keep the search open to people with other kinds of professional degrees,'' Taylor said.
Barry stressed that there's no magic formula fit for all schools: ``There's a textbook way of doing it and your own way of doing it. Just because I say, `Here's a good way to do it,' that doesn't mean it's the only good way to do it. The university should do what's comfortable for the university.'' ILLUSTRATION: Should Norfolk State announce the names of finalists
and bring them to campus for open forums?
PRO: Anita Taylor, George Mason professor
``Under no circumstances would I suggest a president ought to be
hired who has not come to campus, been seen by the campus community
and talked to the campus community in public forums. You see a
person in ways a search committee can never see them. You see a
president under fire, and presidents are going to be under fire.''
CON: James L. Fisher, former consultant to ODU
``They won't attract good candidates unless they can guarantee the
candidate will not be exposed till the very end. That means no
(public) interviews for the top three or four or five candidates. .
. . The interview is the least effective predictor of job success,
yet we all have this penchant for pressing the flesh.''
INFOLINE
WANTED: NSU PRESIDENT
What should Norfolk State University look for in a new president?
What should his or her top priorities be? To comment, dial 640-5555
and press 2-NSU (2678).
KEYWORDS: NORFOLK STATE UNIVERSITY by CNB