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June 21, 2007, 11:21 AM ET
Doomed to Fail?
In a recent First Person column, John P. Frazee, director of faculty relations at the University of Colorado at Boulder, uses his own job-seeking experiences to show how flaws in a search can manifest themselves during a campus interview.
For example, he describes an interview for a position as vice president for academic affairs at “Gorgonzola College” in which it became obvious — from the makeup of the search committee and the kinds of questions asked — that the administration and faculty had wildly different ideas about the appointment:
I assumed the membership of the search committee would be typical for a position like this — mostly faculty members and academic-support staffers, perhaps with a dean included to represent administrative concerns.
I was wrong. Apart from the president, a nonacademic administrator, and one faculty member, the search committee was composed of people drawn largely from the local business and economic-development network. The composition of the committee turned out to be a portent of things to come.
Frazee learned later that “the administration wanted someone who would be involved in local economic development off the campus,” while the faculty wanted someone “who would ensure that its needs and priorities were represented vigorously to the president. I had been caught in the crossfire.”
Not surprisingly, the person whom Gorgonzola College eventually hired left after a mere 18 months, he writes.
So what lessons should search committees take from his experience? Well, for starters, conflicts such as the one he describes should be resolved before a search goes forward. More important, though, search committees ought to keep in mind that “searches are a two-way street,” Frazee writes:
Searches should yield in-depth knowledge of each candidate’s qualifications, personality, and character, of course. At the same time — and equally important for a successful outcome — searches should provide candidates with meaningful opportunities to assess their own level of interest in the position. Just as candidates strive to present themselves in their best light, so should search committees.
Institutions that ignore candidates’ needs may end up with “a failed search,” or worse, with “an appointment that proves disastrous for both candidate and campus,” Frazee concludes.
Categories: Administrative-hiring
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