A System Throws Out Its Search for a New Leader. Now What?

On those rare occasions that a university searches for a new leader and doesn’t find one, you can expect a stink. When the University of Iowa declined to name any of four finalists its new president in 2006, it led to an uproar, including votes of no confidence in the university’s Board of Regents.

After the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities declined last week to name any of the three publicly announced finalists for chancellor to the post, there was little outcry. In fact, the Board of Trustees won some kudos for passing on the three candidates and naming Devinder Malhotra, a long-serving administrator with the system, as interim chancellor by unanimous vote.

In Minnesota, the expense and effort of a failed search for a new chancellor — not to mention the public awkwardness — seem to have been balanced against the need to find the right person for a demanding job running a complex system in a turbulent time. The costs and trouble of redoing the search may not outweigh those of getting it wrong.

Three finalists — Michael V. Martin, president emeritus of the Colorado State University system; Keith T. Miller, president emeritus of Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania; and Cathy Sandeen, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin Colleges and University of Wisconsin-Extension — spent much of last week meeting with trustees, presidents, faculty, and other constituencies. But at a board meeting on Thursday, Michael M. Vekich, the chair, said that after evaluating feedback from various stakeholders, “it became increasingly clear that we have not yet found the right person to lead Minnesota State over the years ahead.”

Leading the system presents a formidable task. Minnesota State combines 37 comprehensive universities, community colleges, and technical colleges with 54 campuses spread across a large, mostly rural state. A report released by the system last summer called its current path “financially unsustainable,” and projected that its annual structural funding gap could rise as high as $475 million by 2025. (Minnesota State did not make Mr. Vekich available for comment.)

Mr. Martin, who received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Minnesota State University at Mankato when it was known as Mankato State University, says that the system presents “a challenging organization scheme, to try to pull these very disparate parts together and make it a system.” He says he has received no feedback from the board on why he wasn’t chosen, but adds that he sensed that the trustees were “hoping that something would jump out and say, ‘This is the miracle worker.’”

Whether the system requires a miracle worker to run it, the stakes make it even more important that the board make the right decision. “Minnesota State is at a critical juncture with significant challenges and big decisions ahead,” says Thomas L. Harnisch, director of state relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. “Failing to pick a candidate can be embarrassing, but picking the wrong candidate can be much, much worse.”

Given the complexities of working with several different types of institutions and many constituencies, Mr. Malhotra may be the best choice for the moment, according to Kevin G. Lindstrom, president of the Minnesota State College Faculty, the union that represents faculty members at two-year colleges in the state, and a member of the search advisory committee that initially screened the candidates. Mr. Lindstrom wasn’t privy to the board’s reasoning about the finalists, but he says Mr. Malhotra, who had previously served as interim president of Metropolitan State University and provost and vice president for academic affairs at St. Cloud State University, is known and respected throughout the system.

Mr. Malhotra is “one of those guys where if you don’t like him, there’s something wrong with you,” he says. “There’s no question in my mind whatsoever that we have the best possible interim we could have.” While the system doesn’t have a permanent chancellor, he adds, “I think we’re in the right place.”

A New Search

Through a spokesman, Minnesota State declined to comment on its plans for another search, but the process might be quite different the second time around. It probably should be, according to James H. Finkelstein, a professor emeritus of public policy in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University who has researched the use of executive-search firms in hiring college presidents. The question Minnesota State needs to ask, he says, is, Was it something that the search firm did or didn’t do, or is it something that the institution needs to fix within itself?

Many of the executive-search contracts for colleges that Mr. Finkelstein has examined include a clause stating that if an initial search is unsuccessful, the firm will do another search for no additional charge or a reduced price. The agreement between Minnesota State and Storbeck/Pimental & Associates, the firm that conducted its search, guarantees that it will do an additional search at no charge if it fails to produce three viable candidates, or if a candidate hired fails to serve out a year on the job, but no provision about rejected finalists. The system has paid the firm about $100,000 to date as part of an agreement that could be worth as much as $170,000 in fees and expenses. Steve Leo, a partner at Storbeck/Pimental, declined to comment on an ongoing search.

Whether Minnesota State continues with the same firm or hires a new one, it shouldn’t be in a big hurry, according to Judith A. Wilde, who is chief operating officer and a professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and Mr. Finkelstein’s research partner. “No one outside of the immediate constituents will ever really know exactly what went wrong with this search,” she says, and possible candidates might wonder if the problem lies with the system, not the search itself.

Ms. Wilde recalls a university she declined to name that experienced two failed searches for a senior administrator and immediately started a third. The sequence of failed searches “brought up all kinds of issues” for the institution, she says, and probably made it look less attractive to potential candidates. If an institution like Minnesota State waits, and moves forward with its interim chancellor, “it makes a stronger case for having some other good applicants apply.”

Mr. Martin, for one, wishes the system well. “The state needs them to be good, and they need to find the right leader to be as good as they can be,” he says. His advice for the next search is that “the board really get together and collectively decide what they truly want so they have a better sense of what they’re looking for.”

Lee Gardner writes about the management of colleges and universities, higher-education marketing, and other topics. Follow him on Twitter @_lee_g, or email him at lee.gardner@chronicle.com.