In the last year or so, here at IVC, there’s been considerable worry about a certain dean hire that is now going forward. Our hiring policies are OK, but, given the evident character of some of our leadership, many of us have suspected that, nevertheless, the fix was in. (You should read the job description. Sheesh.)
These people just don’t get it. We aren’t necessarily against the hire of the apparent beneficiary of the suspected fixitude. Nope. It’s about process. Unless the hire is fair and honest, we want nothing to do with it. Ignoring or violating process is corrupt and corrupting. It grounds the institution in rot.
Naturally, in this district, we have every right to worry, too, about hires occurring higher up the food chain. I won't review the history.
Our chancellor hiring policy is good, more or less. But can we trust the powerful to faithfully implement it?
I was noisily concerned about the Chancellor search last Spring. I was particularly concerned that the duplicitous Raghu Mathur would be designated the overseer of the process.
But the trustees steered clear of that error. Evidently, Mathur wasn’t considered for that role. It was given to mild-mannered and respected David Bugay. Whew!
Still, there was so much else that could go wrong. And so I was very relieved when, at the February board meeting, Board President Don Wagner offered apparently heartfelt assurances that the chancellor hiring process would be aboveboard.
At the time, I described his remarks thus:
Wagner then said—well, he said all that one might hope that he would say! He explained that he was committed to a process that was as fully open and exhaustive and aboveboard as possible. Speaking for himself, he pledged that there certainly were no candidates with a "leg up." He said that he was looking for a process that everyone could get behind. He was determined that the community would embrace the process as a good and honest one. (The Chancellor recruitment goes forward—but only after a brouhahahahahaha; for video, go here; jump to item 6.1.)That assurance plus the choice of Bugay as search overseer did much to assuage our concerns.
The composition of the search committee was another real positive. They’re good people.
We’ve heard rumors of issues and problems on that committee, but we’ve also been assured—by otherwise tight-lipped committee members—that the group came up with genuinely good candidates. They have put their names forward. Great!
The board agenda that went out last week revealed that, at Monday's meeting, the board would spend five hours interviewing and discussing these candidates. And so we wondered: could it be that, at the evening opening session, a new chancellor would be announced?
That seemed to be the plan.
But, yesterday, when the trustees finally convened the open session (at about 7:30), that didn’t happen. No announcements were made about the hiring process (aside from the announcement that there was nothing to report).
What does this tell us? It is possible, I suppose, that some trustees were pushing for, say, site visits or some other further step. But that doesn’t seem likely. It’s hard to imagine the trustees traveling to colleges or even a college. They're busy people. The legwork has been done. It is time to decide.
Years ago, the board would make a great effort to hire a chancellor only unanimously, and that produced some peculiar negotiations (some of them illegal). Could it be that some trustees just couldn’t be persuaded to get on board with the popular choice?
But nobody who has observed the board in the last year or so would suppose that unanimity would be required. Unrealistic.
We need to consider the possibility (not the only remaining one, I guess) that the board just doesn’t like the candidates sent up by the search committee.
If so, process will once again take a major hit, and Don Wagner's assurances of good and honest processes will now be seen to be, well....
