Happy Days Are Here Again.

I am sure that those that have been lulled into accepting the "secrecy" of the presidential selection process will not raise no further objections.

When someone is seeking a leadership position, especially a public funded position, they should do so in the sunshine. If a person is not strong enough in the poei6ion that they hold that they would fear retribution from their present employer if they apply elsewhere....they are not the kind of leader we need.

I realize the wheels have been put in motion and they cannot be stopped. It's a travesty that such a process is allowed. Hopefully, the process will be full of leaks, and that someone will shine the light on the candidates early in the process.

If I were on the "advisory committee" I would question the reason I was selected.

We would have been much better off with a "principled decision making process."

We will live with the person we get...and there is no way in the world that the person selected will not be some better than what we now have.

Nuff Said.

An informal count in the senate the other day indicated that there at least 8 faculty members on the committee (and perhaps one or two others we do not know about). Many of these are AAUP members, there are a number of senate members, and the goverance councils are all represented. It suggests to me that faculty will have a strong voice in the process, although as, indicated, the proceedures will be "secret" (although the only change from our previous process is at the end when final candidates are brought to campus).  My best guess is that with such an assemblage of faculty -- a number of whom have expressed strong dissension with the Board in the past and with this administration -- that any attempt to manipulate the process will result in several resignations -- and that will be sign enough.

The one thing that consoles me about this process is my memory that our previous "open" process was a joke and it allowed powerful interests to manipulate it. I think that the only way to remove the process from politicization is to cut off access to the groups that can manipulate it. This was the reason so many (other than faculty) groups at MSU were so angry -- not because they believed in open searches, but because they had lost control of the search.

It comes down to whether you believe that Meredith is honorable, whether the Board has changed, and whether the faculty sitting on the committee will make sure the process is correct. Although I am still committed to "open" searches and hope that one day we may return to them, I do not believe such searches are possible in Mississippi at this time.

I believe that at every step save the issue of the decision on bringing candidates to campus at the end the Commissioner has shown good faith. We have a search that, if anything, gives faculty huge representation (compared to the other two searches) and includes many people who have been critical of the administration and the Board.

I'd like to know the origin of the rumor that faculty will be blamed if there is a leak -- I have seen nothing in this search process to indicate anything like that -- indeed I'd say the opposite.

 

 

 

Well, that may very well be the price of participation -- I don't think that the possibility that some disgruntled people may try to find something to use against us should stop our participation. Anyway, all search committees in recent years have been obligated to sign secrecy agreements -- that is not new. What is new is the end game at the point where the candidate field is narrowed. At this point, Dr. Meredith has assured us that the initial pool will come from the Campus Advisory Committee and that no names will be added at Board level once that pool is sent in. We have further been assured that there will be some involvement by members of the Campus Advisory Board in interviewing candidates, although the involvement will probably be representative rather than the full CAB. Although one might worry that it is possible that the representative group might be "tricked up" -- everything so far convinces me that meredith is trying to conduct a fair search. What I know so far about the CAB suggests that it is very representative and that there is a strong faculty representation.

-- Edited by stephen judd at 18:18, 2006-11-12