Disputes Over Diversity Disrupt Presidential Searches at 2 Public Universities

Governing boards in two states have taken heat for picking presidential finalists at odds with faculty and student demands for diversity.

In Colorado, support for the sole finalist to be president of the public-university system is beginning to fracture the Board of Regents, whose members had unanimously chosen Mark R. Kennedy, currently president of the University of North Dakota. Kennedy’s nomination to lead the University of Colorado system has sparked protests, initially because of his past opposition, as a Republican congressman, to same-sex marriage and abortion rights.

And in South Carolina, trustees of its public-university system decided in late April that they would not make a choice among the four finalists to be president and instead named a campus chancellor as interim leader. The board made that unusual announcement after students and faculty members complained that a search committee had chosen not even one woman among the 11 semifinalists.

Equity and inclusion, in particular for racial minorities, women, and LGBTQ students, have become rallying cries on campuses across the country. And colleges, in general, have become more attuned to the academic and social needs of disadvantaged and underserved populations. Now the events in Colorado and South Carolina show how the demand for diversity is affecting expectations for campus and system leaders.

“In light of the changing nature of higher education, governing boards are wise to be sure that the pool of candidates from which they select a president should be as diverse as they can build it,” said Richard D. Legon, president of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

More Women Needed in South Carolina

The problems with the search for South Carolina’s president, who leads both the system and the flagship campus, in Columbia, were of little surprise to many observers because of the composition of the committee formed to vet applicants as well as the makeup of the university’s Board of Trustees.

A number of highly qualified women and minorities should have been among the pool of finalists, said Jennifer Mandelbaum, a doctoral student of health promotion, education, and behavior, and president of the Graduate Student Association on the university’s Columbia campus.

“This process and the outcome we’re seeing raise questions about how the composition of our board affects the decisions they make about the future of our university,” she said.

The board has 21 members, 18 of whom are white men, mostly elected by state legislators or appointed by the governor. Among the three women, one is designated as a member because of her post as the state’s secretary of education, and one is the board’s only person of color.

The 11-person search committee, appointed by the trustees, included five board members and had just two women.

“If the role of this university is to train the future leaders of our state, our country, and our world, USC cannot continue to leave over half of its students unrepresented, and present an image that excludes women,” said an open letter to the trustees that was signed by more than 40 student groups and 125 faculty members.

Mark Garrett Cooper, a professor of film and media studies at Columbia, credited the board for considering the reaction of faculty members and students. And he hopes, he said, that even greater input from those groups will prevent more turbulence in the continuing search.

The Faculty Senate, where Cooper is chair-elect, passed a resolution promising that it would remain engaged in the search: “Contention in important matters is not to be feared, but rather embraced as a pathway to informed decision making and committed consensus.”

Colorado Regents Split Over Kennedy

The situation is playing out very differently in Colorado, where tensions over the regents’ chosen finalist have escalated since he was announced, on April 10.

Faculty members and students at first voiced concerns about Kennedy’s votes against same-sex marriage and abortion rights during his time in Congress more than a decade ago. Kennedy has said that he now supports same-sex marriage and that his views on abortion will not be a factor at the university system, where decisions about stem-cell research — opposed by anti-abortion groups because the cells are taken from human embryos — are made on the individual campuses.

Since then, however, opponents of Kennedy’s appointment have compiled a lengthy list of actions and policies in which they say he has fallen short on issues of diversity as well as his record as president at the University of North Dakota. A report from the systemwide Faculty Council raises questions about Kennedy’s level of support for tribal colleges and historically black colleges as well as efforts to protect “Dreamer” students, who were taken to the United States as children of undocumented parents.

Last week Kennedy was booed and berated by audience members at an open forum at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

He has responded with an open letter saying the Faculty Council’s report “misconstrues my record and responses to questions from last week’s open forums.”

The regents, who are chosen in partisan elections but who voted unanimously for Kennedy as their sole finalist from a group of six, are now divided over him.

Linda Shoemaker, one of the board’s four Democrats, has announced that she will vote against Kennedy when the regents make their final decision, on Thursday. In a written statement, Shoemaker said she had changed her mind based, in part, on the report from the Faculty Council and because “faculty, staff, and student groups on the Boulder campus are united against him.”

“I attended most of the open forums last week and listened to the anguished voices raised against him,” she wrote. “In addition, I have also heard from thousands of stakeholders urging a no vote.”

Chance Hill, one of the board’s five Republican members, continues to support Kennedy. He said some of his colleagues on the board had changed their views simply because of the candidate’s political affiliation.

“Some people decided that they didn’t like some of his votes, and that’s when you saw some Democrats on the regents make this all about politics,” Hill said in an interview.

“I got sick and tired of seeing a good man have his reputation smeared,” he said.

Hill also lashed out at Kennedy’s detractors in a lengthy Facebook post, saying he would not change his vote “despite my receiving nasty, hateful emails from ill-informed liberals for the past two weeks.”

“I will not reward a small, well-orchestrated Far Leftist mob — who in my opinion represents a mentality as dangerous to this nation’s future as any foreign threat we face,” Hill wrote.

Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Sports Governance Center on the university’s Boulder campus, said Kennedy had become a kind of political Rorschach test in the state and had diverted attention from more-important questions about the role and possible vision of the system president.

“My opposition to Kennedy isn’t political in nature,” Pielke said, “but calling out critics of Kennedy as a greater threat than a hostile foreign power is sort -of a take-your-breath-away moment. It’s unnecessary and incendiary.”

Eric Kelderman writes about money and accountability in higher education, including such areas as state policy, accreditation, and legal affairs. You can find him on Twitter @etkeld, or email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com.