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CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The UVA Board of Visitors’ Presidential Search Special Committee expects to interview prospective candidates for the job in late November.
The commission held its second meeting on Monday at Boar’s Head Resort. Members heard in the open meeting portion from the Isaacson Miller Executive Search firm, and members of the commission’s various subcommittees.
John Isaacson said, “We rarely moved this quickly.” That said, he said “we have a major obstacle in front of us, but we have moved exceptionally well so far.”
That “major obstacle” was not mentioned in any open session, but Isaacson told the committee they’d get to it in the meeting, which probably happened in closed meeting. The closed session topic on the agenda was “prospects: potential candidates”.
“The historic strength of the University, and the loyalty of its students, faculty, and alumni have provided a foundation of a search that shows up in the both the way in which these listening sessions have occurred, the speed with which they have occurred, the strength of them, the clarify to the response,” Isaacson said.
He said that speed has simultaneously led to potential candidates which the committee was getting to for their closed session.
Following the first open session, sociology professor Ian Mullins with the UVA United Campus Workers of Virginia chapter questioned why this process is going so fast and called for the reconstitution of the committee.
“I think its really important to think that if the BOV really wants to lower the temperature, then they actually have to do the repair work that’s required to lower the temperature.”
Dr. Mullins complained we still don’t know why Jim Ryan resigned, or how or why members were selected for this committee, nor why it’s necessary to make a Presidental selection in such an abbreviated 4-to-6-months’ time.
“They can’t just expect the community to pretend like this is business as usual, and to force a candidate through that is going to walk into a situation where they are not set up to succeed.”
“We all want what best for UVA, we all care about this place and we want to work with them, but they actually have to meet us halfway,” Mullins said.
Mullins did say the Monday meeting is the most open to date, but that the process has been flawed from the start.
The Isaacson team went over what has been learned from input in a number of virtual outreach sessions as well as through the Presidential search web survey. The web survey had 321 responses as of Friday, and the portal is still open. The input urged selecting someone who has integrity and will be transparent. They will be compassionate, and a champion of student self-governance, affordability, and cognizant of the importance of experimental learning.
In subcommittee reports, Dr. Babur Lateef reported students want someone visible and accessible, who will continue to regularly meet with them. The subcommittee also discussed trying to increase the student response rate in the web survey in getting out not just to more general population, but to sectors of the population who may have less of a chance of seeing it.
Faculty subcommittee Chair George Martin said the feedback they’ve received is the next President will need to rebuild trust with students, faculty, and staff.
A alumni and donor subcommittee is also concerned with getting the word out to some 270,000 alumni they want to hear from them. They also think the job of University President overall has grown to large for a single person. In a place like UVA with so vast an academic and health division, they want to make sure someone is selected who’ll be very adept at forming an executive leadership team to help do what is “a very, very complex job”.
Board of Visitors Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson closed the open meeting with the announcement of meetings in October and early November “to talk about specific recruitment and candidate profiles”, with interviews late November.