But She Was Our Top Choice

Just because the trustees pass on a search committee’s favorite candidate doesn’t mean the process was corrupt or undemocratic, argues Gary A. Olson in the latest Heads Up column.

Faculty members may cry foul when a board of trustees passes on the search committee’s top candidate in favor of one of the other finalists, says Olson, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Illinois State University, but professors are laboring under the mistaken belief that the search committee selects a hire. Hiring is not a democracy, and yet the system is far from undemocratic, Olson explains:

Shared governance, especially in the context of a search for a top administrator, means that professors, staff members, and sometimes students get to participate in the process — unlike the bad old days when a university official could hire whomever he (and it was invariably a male) wanted without any input.

But while everyone plays a part, “shared” doesn’t mean that everyone gets to participate every step of the way, he writes. Someone has to be held “accountable for the final decision, and committees cannot be held accountable,” Olson argues.

Plus, if any skeletons were uncovered while conducting background checks on a candidate, a single decision maker could “unobtrusively move on to the next candidate on the list” without having to divulge sensitive or confidential information about that candidate to the whole world.

Most important, “if you are hiring someone who is to report directly to you,” and with whom you’ll be working closely, shouldn’t you get to select the person you feel most comfortable with?, Olson asks.