Panel details process for provost pick

From the Northeastern Voice, December 11, 2007

Seeking input from the Northeastern community on the qualities sought in an ideal provost, a search committee hosted four open forums during November with faculty, students, and staff.

Donna Bishop, who chairs the search committee, was joined by consultant Alberto Pimentel for the series of open sessions at the Alumni Center pavilion.

 “One of the things mentioned probably more than any other was the importance of a strong academic leader—one who’s a stellar scholar in his or her own right but who also provides intellectual leadership and vision,” said Bishop in a recent interview. “Some people described it as a coach; others said a cheerleader, a visionary, a motivator.

“Another thing is that he or she has a commitment to working collaboratively with faculty and with deans. As we’re moving to a system that’s much more decentralized, there’s the thought that we need a provost with the ability to deal with deans and with faculty in that kind of environment. It would be very helpful if the person who came here as provost was already experienced in a decentralized university.”

The forums also elicited hopes for “a deeply decent individual, who values other people and is engaged in ethical practice,” Bishop said. “And it has to be someone self-confident enough to articulate a clear vision and then not micromanage, but give people the resources to accomplish that vision.”

She noted that the committee is still seeking input through its Web site, and will share information on that site as well.

Pimentel said thoughts from the university community are invaluable in the search. “We really learn from those who are at the university day to day what the important qualities are and what the challenges are,” he said. “When we recruit, we’re able to accurately portray what this individual will be stepping into—the last thing you want is for someone to come in on the assumption that it’s a particular type of situation when it’s really completely different.

“Hearing from these Northeastern constituent groups has clearly started to paint a picture for all of us that will help in filtering those candidates,” he said.

A competitive market

Flexibility and aggressiveness will be key in the search for a new provost, Pimental said. In part that’s because the search is beginning in the midst of a highly competitive cycle, he said.

“Most universities that want to fill a provost (position) by June or July launch their search in August or early September,” said Pimentel. “We launched ours in November … so it’s increasingly important to us to have a flexible process.”

Pimentel said there are roughly 40 provost searches ongoing in the United States. “More importantly, there are about eight institutions conducting searches right now that are going to be direct competitors,” he said.

Still, he said, the university already has “a very robust list” of candidates and potential candidates to look at—some of whom have applied, others of whom have been recommended by Northeastern faculty.

Bishop noted that she and the committee—vice chair Joanne Miller, a professor of psychology; trustee Margot Botsford; computer and information science Associate Dean Agnes Chan; law professor James Hackney; Stephen Lavenberg of the Student Government Association; counseling and applied psychology professor Karin Lifter; engineering Dean David Luzzi; graduate student Tina Penman; electrical and computer engineering professor Carey Rappaport; and accounting professor David Sherman—will be involved in every step of the process, including interviews.

Some candidates have already applied or been nominated, and Pimentel has begun reaching out to others, with the goal of a first round of screening conversations in January or February. Typically, he said, a provost search has an initial talent pool of 40 to 60 names before the narrowing begins.

Pimentel said the university community may have taken too strongly his caution during the forums that some of the process might not be public.

“The best scenario for everybody involved is that we’re in a position to conduct this search openly from beginning to end,” he affirmed, noting that the forums were designed with that in mind.

However, the state of the academic job market—with more jobs open and fewer candidates—gives more power to applicants to set terms and more incentive to institutions to proceed carefully, Pimentel said.

“First, there’s a very large number of individuals at a senior administrative level who are retiring across the country,” he said. “That wouldn’t normally cause a problem, but most universities have done a poor job of succession planning. The pipeline is very shallow within institutions. And many individuals have opted not to go into senior-level administrative positions; decided that being a dean provides them with the challenge and flexibility that they need from a career perspective, especially as demands on both provosts and presidents have become so heavy.

“So universities are becoming more sophisticated about retaining their talent,” he said. “It’s no longer uncommon for senior administrators who are very talented to have golden handcuffs that tie them to their current institution. At the same time, individuals at these senior levels have become exceptionally skilled and sophisticated about the search process and about working that process in ways that protect their careers,” he said.
“These issues have always surrounded searches, but a combination of these things is happening more frequently. The talent pool is becoming more shallow, and therefore universities have had to become more aggressive.”

As a result, said Pimentel, private universities and, increasingly, public ones have had to look at ways to “protect the integrity of the candidate pool.”

“There’s a difference between candidates who apply on their own and candidates who aren’t even in the job market and don’t know whether they’re interested,” he said. “We need to go out and help convince those individuals … that this is a better opportunity. And they need to have the flexibility to explore the opportunity without the fear that it’s going to damage their current situation, so the issue of confidentiality becomes more important.”

From the university’s perspective, he noted, “if I hear a (competitor) university is interviewing a top candidate on Friday, I’m going to urge our committee to interview that candidate on Monday. We’re all monitoring each other and waiting to see who emerges as candidates. If we can steal any of their candidates, we will—and they’ll do the same.”

“At some point,” Pimentel said, “candidates who want things to be held in confidence may not, if they know they’re finalists, have a problem with our disclosing who they are, and with participating in a process where they come to the campus and meet with a variety of constituent groups. … So, ultimately, we may not need this ability to keep the process confidential. But it would be unfair not to mention it as a possibility up front.”