Presidential search advisory committee hosts open forums, receive low turnout
In two presidential search forums open to the entire Central Michigan University community on March 22, only five students and 10 faculty members in total showed up.
The 45-minute open forums were held in French Auditorium by the presidential search advisory committee as an opportunity for community members to share the qualities they felt were most important for the next president of CMU.
The CMU Board of Trustees appointed the presidential search advisory committee to assist in the search for the university's 15th president.
"We're starting with nothing," said committee member Tricia Keith. "We all have ideas about things that we want to contribute to this profile, but the profile right now doesn't exist. What we're trying to do is take all of this and then build off of it. This is really an open forum about collecting that to start."
Student Opinion
Shane Guenin, a senior from West Lafayette, Indiana, shared that he would like to see a partnership with the city of Mount Pleasant from the next president. He also stated that he wanted a "real and true" commitment to student outreach.
"Something I see occurring in students is we all have a lot of things to say," Guenin said. "And then we have events like this and people don't always come out.
"Something that I'm very, very passionate about is trying to at least be the voice for people who can't be at events like this," said Guenin, who is currently running for Student Government Association president. He also hoped for better diversity representation on campus.
Port Huron junior Chase Delor said he wanted to see the next president focus on issues related to economic, social, and environmental sustainability.
"I really liked how President (George) Ross engaged with the student body," said Midland graduate student Jeremy Cunningham. "Everybody knows him -- he says hi, he's friendly."
Flint senior JoAnna Lincoln also believed that Ross had a very visible presence on campus.
"I saw him around a lot," Lincoln said. "I'm not sure how that is at other universities, but I think that's something that I would like to see again."
Some students expressed concern about a low student turnout, citing a lack of student outreach from administration.
“Everyone talks about how open Ross is, but if all these students are in the dark, you have to wonder important being personable is,” Delor said.
Guenin hoped to see the committee implement students’ input into the presidential search.
“There’s a difference between listening, and actually seeing those results,” he said.
Faculty Opinion
In listing the committee's guiding principles, Committee Member Keith mentioned a desire for diverse candidates. She stated that the committee is completely open to candidates of all types of backgrounds in leadership, skills and experiences.
“The next (president) should be a strong leader and strong advocate for academic programs for faculty and for students,” journalism faculty member Jiafei Yin said. “Earlier on (in the forum) there were points made about being a leader versus being a manager -- being an academic leader is most important.”
Edgar Simpson, faculty member of the department of journalism, stated in his hopes for the next president that they "at least have a Ph.D. and a research background."
While some faculty members hoped for specific focus to their departments, Kevin Campbell from the department of broadcasting and cinematic arts hoped for more wide-ranged focus on success.
"Someone who is focused on the success of all of our students, not one end of campus or the other; all programs," Campbell said.
With many changes going on on-campus -- including an academic reorganization and the ongoing search for a new chief diversity officer -- Thomas Masterson, dean of the College of Health Professions, claimed that the university's next president must be familiar with change management.
Masterson said the candidate will need to know "how to operate change" and "make that change as smooth as possible."
Faculty members expressed distrust with the confidential search process, which will keep private the names of any candidates considered until a final candidate has been chosen and hired.
“This idea of trust has come up over and over again in a variety of processes,” Simpson said, advocating an open search process. “The only way to have trust is to have transparency.”
Keith cited the success of the previous two presidential searches, which were kept closed as well, and stated that they made the decision to keep the search confidential based off the advise of search consultants.
The Process
The presidential search advisory committee will be aided by executive search firm Witt/Kieffer.
Consultants from Witt/Kieffer were on campus March 15-16 and held a series of stakeholder meetings with faculty, student and community leaders.
The input received from the meetings and forums will be used to assist in building the presidential profile of CMU's next president.
Keith said the committee hopes to have put together a presidential profile by the end of April, which will be made publicly available.
Keith also stated there is no concrete timeline yet, and that the committee is more focused on taking the time to find the right candidate rather than how long is takes. If a candidate is not found by Ross' retirement in July, an interim president will be put in place.
Individuals who were unable to attend the open forums may submit input via the Presidential Search website by using the "Submit Input" button to link to an online submission form. The form can be submitted anonymously or with contact information.
To nominate a presidential candidate for consideration, email CentralMichiganPresident@wittkieffer.com.
