Controversies over alleged research misconduct that scuttled the presidencies of two of the most well-known universities in the world in the past year have raised questions about whether such issues should have been caught before the presidents were hired — and whether search committees can do more to find red flags before contracts are signed.
Marc Tessier-Lavigne, of Stanford, stepped down in July following months of controversy about alleged data manipulation in his prior scientific research. And Claudine Gay, of Harvard, resigned Tuesday after she was accused of plagiarism in her academic writing. (A Stanford investigation found Tessier-Lavigne hadn’t committed misconduct himself, but had failed to correct mistakes made by members of his lab. Gay has acknowledged that she did not correctly cite other scholars’ work in some passages of her published research.)
But until technology makes checks for red flags in past research — especially plagiarism — faster and easier, it will be difficult for colleges to conduct comprehensive examinations of all writings by those applying for higher-education administrative jobs, search-firm leaders said. Until then, governance boards will have to be willing to pay for the searches to be done. Getting into scientific methods and outcomes is even harder, particularly under the time crunches of job searches.
At the same time, search firms are likely to increase their vetting of candidates, particularly of campus leaders.
“This is one area where AI can be very helpful going forward,” said Roderick J. McDavis, the managing principal and chief executive of AGB Search. “Trust but verify is our theme. We are going to continue to do our checks. This is one of those areas that because it’s now come up, it’s an area we’re going to be more sensitive to.”
Technological advances have made it easier for search firms and committees to examine candidates’ past work or find out about complaints that have already been raised. But comprehensive analysis takes time.
Thom D. Chesney, the former president of Clarke University, in Iowa, who is currently applying for jobs, knows this firsthand. On Thursday morning, he went online and found a PDF of his 1996 dissertation, 188 pages on George Orwell, and downloaded a copy. Because it was his own work, it was free; others could get it for about $40.
However, it was produced from microfilm and would need reformatting to make it readable for computerized plagiarism-detection software.
That’s doable for a single paper. But performing the same task for an entire candidate pool’s decades of published work would be much more daunting, search consultants said.
If you think about a candidate that has 60, 70 publications, can there be something missed? Yes.
Here’s how it works now: When a senior-administrative job is posted, the initial wave of applicants often get a quick Google vetting. Someone in the search firm runs each applicant’s name through search engines to see if anything disqualifying pops up.
Then, as the pool narrows, the vetting intensifies. Criminal-background checks are run, social-media accounts are scrutinized, and publication citations are confirmed. “It’s critical to review [an applicant’s] scientific credentials,” said Jeffrey G. Harris, the managing partner of Harris Search Associates. “Part of the assessment is where people are publishing.”
Search firms and committees are heavily reliant on the standards of academic journals to make sure there’s no plagiarism or research misconduct. But, as the many scandals from the replication crisis demonstrate, that’s not always foolproof.
Some search firms also hire consultants who search for social-media posts, news stories, or even Reddit entries that may have been scrubbed from the internet.
“Is it a fail-safe process?” McDavis said. “If you think about a candidate that has 60, 70 publications, can there be something missed? Yes.”
Firms might also conduct off-the-list reference checks with people who might know a candidate or tap into the professional circles around the applicants in question, looking for issues that might not have made it out into the open.
A report is then shared with the search committee.
The amount of vetting depends on the person or board doing the search. Chesney has been told to submit a shorter résumé instead of his full CV for some positions, at least at the start. When he does send in his full CV, he includes links to his writings for easy verification.
Chesney has also made hiring decisions — both as an administrator and a board member. He has checked candidates’ publication claims, but said it was more to verify that an applicant had published where they said they did, not to check the quality of the work.
There’s no doubt the level of vetting has increased in recent years, Harris said. “It’s become more rigorous. I think that’s a good thing,” he said, especially considering how much many senior administrators are paid.
Getting the vetting process right can be an effective sales pitch for search firms, especially those that figure out how to do plagiarism checks quickly and for a reasonable cost, Chesney said.
But he cautioned about becoming too reliant on firms’ due diligence. “The real person-to-person reference checks are going to continue to be more telling about a person’s ability to do the job,” he said, adding that vetting — including plagiarism checks — should “be a tool in an array of tools.”
