Presidential Search

= Letter Regarding the Presidential Search - Monday, April 11, 2011 =

Submitted by: Beth I. Ward

Dear faculty, staff, and students:

This afternoon, Gaye Hill, chair of the presidential search committee, Sig Roos, chair of the board of trustees, and Ken Rosenthal, vice chair of the board, hosted an all-community meeting to give an update on the presidential search process and answer questions. We know that not everyone was able to attend, so Gaye, Sig, and Ken asked me to send out this recap.

REVIEW OF WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO DATE:

In September 2010, 18 members of the Hampshire community were appointed to serve on the presidential search committee. This includes eight trustees (including the elected faculty trustee, the elected staff trustee, and the elected student trustee), four at-large faculty members, two at-large student members, two at-large staff members, and the secretary of the college, with the college's affirmative action officer serving as a non-voting advisor to the process. In developing the search committee membership, each campus constituency led its own process for selecting representatives.

The search committee's first step was to review proposals from a number of executive search firms, from which Witt/Kieffer was selected to support us in our search process. The committee then collectively developed a presidential search position specification to be used in advertising and recruitment efforts. This document can be found on the presidential search website - http://www.hampshire.edu/offices/presidential-search.htm - and is our best effort to explicate what makes Hampshire distinctive, what qualities and qualifications we seek in a president, and the expectations and opportunities for leadership.

One of our priorities throughout has been to solicit feedback from all college constituents, both on campus and in the broader community, about the qualities and qualifications needed in Hampshire's next president. We have done this in a variety of ways: Our Witt/Kieffer consultants, Kate Haley Will and Lucy Leske, held a series of open meetings with all campus constituencies. We used on-line surveys developed by student members of the search committee. We issued a questionnaire - "Tell us Your Ideas" - and got well over 100 responses from our community. Search committee members have regularly reported out at school meetings, staff meetings, faculty meetings, and student gatherings. The presidential search website is kept up-to-date with comprehensive information about the search process as it has evolved.

The search committee members reviewed over 75 applications from potential presidential candidates, including educators and non-profit leaders from the United States and abroad. Through a process of consensus, the committee selected 11 candidates out of this pool to invite for interviews. At the end of March, the search committee as a group met with each of the 11 candidates at Boston's Logan Airport - each interview lasted 1Â½ hours and involved asking a set of structured questions that the search committee members had developed. You can take a look at these questions on the presidential search website, as well as a list of the preparatory information we sent to each of the candidates.

Again through a process of consensus, the search committee decided to proceed with six of the candidates, and asked Witt/Kieffer to begin conducting reference checks. The committee met again last Thursday, reviewed the references, and decided to move forward with four candidates. We are thrilled with this pool - we have four very qualified, very interesting people who are all clearly drawn to Hampshire.

NEXT STEPS:

Our next step will be to interview the four semi-finalists. These interviews will take place later this month and will be intensive, with an evening followed by a full day of meetings for each candidate. The candidates will meet in small group settings with trustees, the search committee, the academic deans, the heads of the college's major administrative units, staff, faculty, students, and former presidents and Board chairs, and will also make a presentation to the combined group.

We are seeking 15 additional participants - five each of faculty, students, and staff - to meet with the semi-finalists and give their feedback to the search committee. The search committee is seeking people who will bring a range of interests, experience, and perspectives to the process, who are available on all required dates, and who will commit to maintaining absolute confidentiality.

WHY ARE WE DOING IT THIS WAY?

We are delighted to have four exceptionally strong candidates who are actively interested in becoming president of Hampshire College. As we have shared with the campus community all along, it was evident that confidentiality would be an important dimension of this search in order for us to secure the best possible candidates. After our interviews in Boston, we asked the six candidates about whom we were interested in learning more if they would be willing to come to campus and be part of all-community meetings. The majority said they could not do so at this point in the search process because they have positions where it would be deleterious to their reputations should the news of their interest become widely known. Each of these individuals is prominent in her or his field, and each has a public persona and reputation to uphold.

While we know the community would prefer to move into a fully open process at this point, it is important to keep in mind that these candidates were recruited, meaning the search consultants have reached out to individuals who are content in their current positions and may not have been thinking about other opportunities until they were encouraged to consider Hampshire's presidency. Moreover, thus far, they have only spent 1Â½ hours with the search committee in a large interview setting. They need to know more about us and we need to know more about them before they can feel confident in letting their current employers know they may be leaving.

That said, we are committed to having the most expansive process we realistically can given the constraints of confidentiality. The search committee has spent a lot of time developing a plan for the subsequent round of interviews, working to make them as inclusive as possible. A major point of discussion has concerned how many additional members of each constituency might meet with the candidates without risking a breach of confidentiality. In the end, the executive committee of the Board of Trustees has endorsed involving five additional students, five additional faculty members, and five additional staff members to this stage of the interview process.

HOW CAN I BE INVOLVED?

1. Please be on the look-out for another email from Beth Ward, to come tomorrow, describing how you can nominate yourself or someone else to be one of the people interviewing the semi-finalist candidates. This email will include details about the process, timeframe, and expectations around confidentiality.

In the meantime, here is a brief overview of how the nominations process will work: All nominations will be returned to Beth, who will follow up as needed to make sure that each nominee completes a form indicating her or his interest in serving. Beth will then pass the forms along to affirmative action officer Maddie Marquez, who will work with each constituency to ensure that the additional participants provide a range of viewpoints and perspectives to complement those already represented on the search committee.

Importantly, please know that these additional participants will NOT be selected by the trustees or search committee members. The five students will be selected randomly from among those who have put their names forward, and then cross-checked to make sure they represent a breadth of perspectives; the five faculty members will be selected in consultation with the academic deans and the dean of faculty, seeking a diverse group of faculty of different ranks and disciplines; and the five staff members will be selected to ensure representation across the different offices and that both exempt and non-exempt staff are included.

2. Please email Beth at bward@hampshire.edu to submit your ideas for questions you would like the candidates to be asked in the semi-finalist interviews. On the presidential search website, you can see what was asked during the first round of interviews, and this is an opportunity to probe more deeply and to ask additional or different questions. Beth will compile the questions so that the search committee can integrate them into the upcoming interview process.

QUESTIONS?

Please feel free to contact Beth with any questions you may have: bward@hampshire.edu or 559-5521.

Thank you!

= Issues, Petition, and Further Actions =

On Wednesday, April 14th, a group of concerned Hampshire students put out the following petition:

"The Presidential Search Committee has chosen four finalists. In the last presidential search, Hampshire brought the finalists to campus to meet the entire community. This time, concerns about confidentiality prompted the committee to decide on a much more closed process: only 8 students will be able to meet the candidates before our next president is chosen.

This process does not allow adequate representation for the student body; 8 students cannot represent the diverse views of over 1500 students. The decision to limit the number of students ignores our rights, goes against Hampshire’s core values, and is reflective of disrespect for student voices. The committee made this decision without engaging with the constituencies that were being disenfranchised or effectively addressing the problems of a closed process.

Therefore I, the undersigned, petition the Presidential Search Committee and the Board of Trustees to:

•Expand the number of students who will meet with the presidential candidates to 30, so that the group of students can more accurately reflect the broad range of diverse experiences and opinions in the student body.

•Provide the Hampshire community with redacted interview transcripts and a letter from each candidate to the community, with the opportunity for those reading this information to provide meaningful feedback."

The actual petition can be found and signed at www.bit.ly/hcpres.