How Choosing a Cabinet Helped Put One College President in Peril

Last week the Board of Trustees of Hope College seemed poised to oust the institution’s president, John C. Knapp, less than three years into his term. Now, after days of protests on the Michigan institution’s campus and on social media, the board’s move to fire Mr. Knapp has stalled.

“We unanimously agree to withdraw our motion to recommend the termination of John Knapp’s contract as president of Hope College,” wrote Mary V. Bauman, chairwoman of the board, in an email to fellow trustees on Friday.

But Mr. Knapp is not out of the woods yet. “We continue to be unanimous in our serious concerns about John Knapp’s performance as president,” Ms. Bauman wrote in the email, adding that the board would convene next month to examine “this critical issue in order to provide information, answer questions, and together move forward to bring resolution.”

News of Mr. Knapp’s potential removal didn’t go over well with many in the college community. Students quickly organized on Twitter using the hashtag #Students4Knapp:

Student supporters also staged a silent protest at the center of Hope’s campus. Professors joined the campaign to save the president: Nearly 75 percent of tenured faculty members signed a petition voicing their “total, unreserved support for President John Knapp and his leadership,” said William Pannapacker, a professor of English literature, in an email to The Chronicle. (Mr. Pannapacker is a regular contributor to The Chronicle.)

Mr. Knapp’s apparent popularity, on campus and with alumni, raised a question: Why would the board move to fire him?

Early rumblings were that members of the board had been upset by Mr. Knapp’s decisions on social issues, which were seen by many students, faculty, and alumni as relatively progressive for Hope, a Christian institution affiliated with the Reformed Church in America. Under Mr. Knapp’s leadership, the college granted spousal benefits to gay employees after the Supreme Court ruled last year that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. The president has also expanded Hope’s recruitment of underrepresented students.

But many faculty leaders view last week’s resignation of R. Richard Ray, the provost, as the real tipping point.

Mr. Ray, who had served as provost since 2010, is also a professor of kinesiology and has been on the faculty at Hope for more than 30 years. His resignation as provost was announced in an email to the faculty from Mr. Knapp, who cited the need for “new and different leadership.” Mr. Knapp said in the email that he had asked Mr. Ray to step down earlier in the year; in a different message, he cited a “need for new leadership for Hope’s academic program” as the reason to remove Mr. Ray from the provost’s role.

That decision upset Ms. Bauman and the board’s executive committee, whose members began to take steps for Mr. Knapp’s removal, according to several faculty leaders and officials connected to the situation. Most of those leaders agreed to speak only anonymously, citing concerns about professional retribution.

“The tension between the eight-member executive committee of the Board of Trustees and the president occurred around the president’s decision to reappoint Ray,” said one faculty member who did agree to speak, Deirdre D. Johnston, a professor of communications. “It is my speculation that the executive committee and the president had a disagreement about their respective roles and authority in reassigning Ray,” she wrote in an email to The Chronicle.

“It is the understanding of the faculty that the executive committee’s actions to try to remove the president is simply the result of a personal disagreement, rather than any justifiable reason for terminating the president’s contract,” wrote Ms. Johnston, who has served a term as the faculty’s administrative liaison.

Mr. Knapp, Mr. Ray, and Ms. Bauman declined to comment. A college representative said that board meetings are confidential and that any assumptions about the board’s concerns are only speculation.

The Value of a Shared Vision

While it is common for presidents to be given broad authority to select their own staffs, Mr. Knapp’s current situation — in which he found trouble by removing a high-level administrator who predated him — is hardly unprecedented.

Disputes between trustees and presidents over key personnel decisions often signal broader tensions. At Florida A&M University, for example, some trustees balked when Elmira Mangum, the president, appeared poised to remove Avery McKnight, a longtime general counsel at the university and an alumnus.

Ms. Mangum did eventually dismiss Mr. McKnight, but only after she narrowly escaped a board attempt to fire her.

Last spring, when Mississippi’s governing board for higher education fired Daniel W. Jones, who was chancellor of the University of Mississippi, Dr. Jones said that his falling out with trustees had stemmed from disagreements over a key appointment. Dr. Jones, a physician and former vice chancellor of the institution’s medical campus, wanted to hire an internal candidate as the new vice chancellor for the medical center and dean of the School of Medicine. The board, however, sought an outsider and wanted to micromanage the search, according to Dr. Jones.

Tensions may also arise when a top-level administrator is perceived to be too close to trustees, outflanking the president. Such was the case at the University of Virginia, where Michael Strine, Virginia’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, had back-channel communications with board members who were seeking, in 2012, to remove Teresa A. Sullivan, president of the university. Ms. Sullivan, who had appointed Mr. Strine, accepted his resignation shortly after she was reinstated as president.

Such conflicts highlight how important it is for presidents to feel comfortable with their cabinets, said Jill Derby, a consultant with the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

“A president has a right to choose his or her cabinet, and in fact to feel that that cabinet is aligned with the president’s vision,” Ms. Derby said. “If there is someone that opposes it, and then in back channels they go to the board and establish relationships, then that is a governance failure, and that doesn’t work.”

A shared vision between the president, his or her cabinet, and the board is critical to successful governance, added Ms. Derby.

Michael V. Drake, president of Ohio State University, shared that sentiment in a recent interview. During his nearly two-year tenure, Dr. Drake, an ophthalmologist, has named a new chief of staff, added members to his cabinet, and begun a search for a new provost. Dr. Drake has consulted with trustees about those hires, he said, but ultimately the decision rests with him.

“If the board does not have a president who they think should have autonomy in these decisions, they should get a different president,” Dr. Drake said.

Dr. Drake said he was unfamiliar with the situation at Hope College, but as a general rule, he said, it is in a board’s interest to defer to presidents on personnel decisions. One reason, he said, is that the success or failure of an important appointment should rest completely with the president.

“If it doesn’t work,” he said of the trustees, “it’s not going to be their fault.”

Jack Stripling contributed to this report.