Texas A&M University’s Board of Regents is scheduled to meet by telephone today to discuss a presidential-search process that has many faculty members on the College Station campus up in arms.
At issue is the regents’ decision to look outside the list of three finalists recommended by an advisory search committee made up of faculty and staff members, current and former students, two regents, and the president of the local Chamber of Commerce.
A&M’s flagship campus has been without a permanent president since Robert M. Gates resigned last year to become U.S. secretary of defense.
The 14-member advisory committee had spent seven months winnowing down a list of 143 candidates to three finalists, which it turned over to the regents in August. One candidate later withdrew for personal reasons. But the board’s decision to look outside that list, without asking the committee for further suggestions, prompted Angie Hill Price, speaker of the Faculty Senate, to write a letter last month to the board’s chairman, Bill Jones.
“While we recognize the regents’ authority to select the next president of Texas A&M University, we firmly believe that the next president should be selected from among the list of leading and acceptable candidates submitted by the Search Advisory Committee, or the search should be constituted anew,” wrote Ms. Price, who is an associate professor of engineering technology and industrial distribution.
Going outside that list threatens the university’s system of shared governance and could harm faculty morale, as well as the university’s reputation, she wrote.
Not a Slight to Faculty Interests
Mr. Jones answered in a letter this month that, “while shared governance has its place, the ultimate responsibility and charge for governance in the selection of presidents for universities in the system lies solely and completely in the Board of Regents.”
He said the regents would try to be inclusive, but added that if the process of selecting a president hurt faculty morale, “we will accept those unfortunate consequences.” He said he trusted that once the regents had named their pick, “there will be no further thoughts or threats of controversy surrounding the process.”
In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Jones said that for reasons he is not free to discuss, the board was not able to pursue all of the finalists the committee had offered.
“What has been perceived as a slight to faculty interests is not that at all,” he said. Because the board is bound by confidentiality agreements not to discuss the search process or the candidates involved, “there’s a great deal of misunderstanding that I wish I could clear up, but I’m not at liberty to.”
Disregard for Shared Governance?
The response from the regents’ chairman upset many faculty members, including R. Douglas Slack, who was chairman of the search committee and is a former speaker of the Faculty Senate.
“We were quite stunned by such an apparent disregard for shared governance at a major academic higher-education institution in North America,” he said. “Ours was probably the most inclusive committee I’ve served on in my 33 years at Texas A&M.”
The list of finalists, which could not be revealed for confidentiality reasons, included a member of the National Academy of Sciences and “one of the top rising presidents on the East Coast,” said Mr. Slack, who is also a professor of wildlife and fisheries sciences. “We’re not talking about lightweights.”
He reported his concerns to the Faculty Senate’s executive committee on Monday. A full meeting of the senate is scheduled for next Monday to discuss the matter.