Minutes of March 6, 2002 Meeting of
The Search Advisory Committee
The fifth meeting of the Search Advisory Committee for the University of West Florida presidential search was held on March 6, 2002 at the University of West Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition at 40 South Alcaniz downtown Pensacola.
1. Call to order.
Co-Chairs Dr. Linda Dye and Mr. Eric Nickelsen called the meeting to order at 9:00 A.M.
2. Calling of the Roll.
Twenty eight committee members were present. Absentees included Fred Donovan, Nettie Eaton, Evon Emerson, Dr. Godfrey Franklin, William Healey, Sara Jones, Dr. Chula King, John Mobley, Michael Papantonio and Joe Scarborough. Guests included: Board of Trustee Chairman Collier Merrill, Bill Funk of Korn/Ferry, Julie Sheppard General Counsel, Becky Crawford coordinator of logistics for the interviews and Vicki Knaack, recorder.
3. Approval of minutes, February 6, 2002.
Dr. Linda Dye introduced minutes from the meeting held on February 6, 2002.
It was agreed to accept minutes as they stand, no changes.
4. Update from Bill Funk.
Bill Funk has met with Linda Dye, Eric Nickelsen, Collier Merrill and the deans and their input has been very helpful to his process. Collier Merrill and Ken Ford gave him a tour of IHMC which will be a good tool for recruitment. Bill invites the committee to share anything that might be helpful to him. In the next two weeks he will be distilling the candidate pool to the number this committee wants to interview. The search is going well with 72 in the public pool (applied or nominated in response to the ads and people here). These are the ones that are public. As Bill receives these, he logs them in and sends them to Keith. Keith shares with media or whoever in compliance with the Sunshine law. Of these seventy-two, fifty-two are actual candidates - others have declined or have not yet responded.
The separate on-going activity Bill has is not public. In the Tennessee search he recently completed (where they also work under a public record law) one finalist came from his pool and one finalist from the public pool. The final selectee was a sitting president, who would NEVER have agreed to be a candidate until the end of the process.
Bill is working with 105 people (includes the 72 public ones). He is talking to his own list of about 37 to interest them in becoming candidates. He clarified that if anyone looked at the public list and wondered if he was doing his best, the answer is yes. In a couple weeks the committee will see the entire pool.
Bill reiterated the very competitive process that is going on and lists 20 other presidential searches now in process including Mississippi State, University of Michigan, Texas A&M, University of Maryland, Arizona State, Southern Miss, Florida A&M, University of South Carolina, etc. He emphasized it is important to move the process along. With the assistance of the chair and co-chair, Bill will work to distill the pool to the 6 or 8 people that this committee will interview.
5. Committee discussion with Mr. Funk regarding skills/abilities/attributes of the next President.
Bill opens the floor to questions:
a. Question: Can Bill characterize the potentials' on his list?
His pool might include Provosts at larger institutions and sitting presidents at institutions of the same size or smaller. There are more non-traditional candidates in the public pool. His pool carries more traditional candidates.
b. What is it about UWF and the region that give the necessary edge to make it attractive to these best people?
The money that is offered will be similar to other institutions so that is not the real issue. Extra pieces that are consistent with what's already here such as housing allowance, car, entertainment expenses, club memberships, etc. are a plus.
c. What is the timetable the next several weeks?
The plan is to announce the distilled pool to SAC by March 19th. There may be a week slippage here but not to worry if that happens as it just means he has gotten some good last minute candidates. March 19th is the target. After that, the timeline is up to the committee. The hope is to begin interviews the first part of April.
d. How is the public/private pool narrowed?
Bill gives the committee 6 to 8 names from the consolidated public/private pool.
Linda encouraged all committee members to review the candidates currently available through Keith's office and Bill noted that it will be helpful for committee members to review them and share their comments with him.
General Counsel Julie Sheppard advised the committee to telephone comments to Bill as email or written items will be public. Bill instructs the committee to talk to his assistant Krisha Creal in his absence.
e. Will SAC members know who is on the final list and get their own set of resumes at the meeting when Bill returns March 19th? What will be provided to the Committee members besides resumes?
The answer is yes, committee members will know the names when Bill returns to the committee and all committee members will have their own copies of resumes and any support materials such as cover letters, nomination letters, letters of recommendation. Bill will also do a master Lexis-Nexis run on each candidate covering the last 10 years; drawing on headlines/articles written about the individual and other public records. It is a great tool to see what has been said about the candidate and their accomplishments. Then once the list is narrowed, Bill does credit checks, litigation checks, background checks, etc.
General discussions followed relating to the size of the distilled pool to be brought to the committee, how many it will be possible to interview and/or do campus visits, concerns about the best candidates waiting until the pool is very small before they are willing to commit, may want to narrow the number Bill gives SAC by resume to a more manageable number for interviews.
Bill Funk advised using 1 ½ hour formal interviews with 15 to 20 minutes in between, 3 in one day and 3 on the next. His experience shows 8 is the maximum or you end up forgetting. The pool brought to the committee will need to go through the interview process to get it down to 3 to go to the Board of Trustee Search Committee.
Discussion followed which clarified that there are two different processes; one is paring down the 6 or so down to say 3 for the 2-day extensive campus visit process, in which the Board of Trustees will be involved. Then, the Trustees will do site visits.
There was concern voiced about not sharing with constituents. The point was made that the Search Advisory Committee members are the constituency. That is why they were selected for this committee.
General Counsel Julie Sheppard pointed out the importance of a public meeting, scheduled in a place like the UWF Conference Center where UWF people need to have the opportunity to come to meet the finalists. It is sure to be a well-attended event.
There was discussion about feedback - it needs to be qualitative - "this candidates strengths are . . . this candidates weaknesses are . . ." But NO ranking. Since the feedback will be public, it's important to keep comments qualitative.
Denis McKinnon offered the following motion:
Bill Funk will bring no more than 6 names. SAC will narrow this list through the shortened interview process to not more than 3 who go through the 2-day extensive campus visit process.
Vote taken - Motion passed unanimously.
There was further discussion about evaluation forms, example questions, how Bill narrows from large pool to 6 and how factors specific to UWF enter in to Bill's process.
Bill uses his experience and designs his questions to apply to what he learns about UWF and come up with the 6 strongest candidates. Bill is biased toward provosts and presidents as it is a big leap for deans. Typically a provost or president has dealt with all the issues of the position. Bill evaluates the leadership qualities of the candidates and incorporates other criteria and evaluates the institutional experience the person has - size, kind, complexity. He looks for experience in comparably complex institutions like UWF. He looks for funding (public and private) experience and the degree of success in funding endeavors. He doesn't want someone who just wants to retire in Florida. The person must have interest in continuing, not ending, their career here. Someone looking for the opportunity to grow and lead. He looks at what the candidate has accomplished, effective lobbying in the legislature, capital campaigns at other institutions, how the person works with coordinating boards and how many programs they have gotten approved, their track record of applying the principles of diversity. He looks at those recommended by someone he knows and respects. Ordinarily Bill is not the "distiller" in these pools - he does so reluctantly because of the Sunshine issues. He looks at how frequent the person changed jobs - those that change jobs repeatedly are knocked out and if one is in place for 20 years this is not a positive either. He works to match candidates to UWF's performance objectives.
Dr. Dye thanked Bill and stated it was a very fruitful session.
6. Other business
Dr. Dye will notify the committee members of the details of March 19th.
As there was no other business, the meeting was adjourned at 10:20 A.M.