Iowa State mulls presidential qualifications in first search meeting

In their first discussion about what they'd like to see in Iowa State University's next president, members of a search committee on Monday mulled 'preferred” qualifications and the idea of 'non-traditional” candidates.

One of the committee's 21 members argued Iowa State's governance structure requires the president be a faculty member, thus mandating he or she meets qualifications documented with the Higher Learning Commission. The challenge in considering someone without a terminal degree, consequently, would be deciding what qualifies as an equivalent, according to Steven Freeman, an agricultural and biosystems engineering professor and search committee member.

'I'm not saying that we have boxed ourselves into a corner,” Freeman said. 'But the combination that we are an accredited university that says this is the qualification for faculty, and we have elsewhere that our president has to be a faculty member - we are limited.”

Members of the Board of Regents Office promised to clarify for the committee any mandates of becoming ISU president - in hopes of being clear in a position advertisement expected to be published in early July.

But committee leadership and board officials after the meeting told The Gazette that Iowa State governance does not necessarily require a president to be a faculty member in the traditional sense.

'People that are qualified to run a university like this definitely have the qualifications to be a faculty member in this institution,” said Luis Rico-Gutierrez, co-chair of the search committee and dean of the ISU College of Design.

That means, he said, Iowa State can consider alternative candidates.

'The search is open,” Rico-Gutierrez said. 'We're in the talent business. We want to look for talent anywhere we can.”

Serving as backdrop to the discussion was the Board of Regents two recent presidential searches at the other public universities it oversees - University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa. The UI search in 2015, at the outset, stressed openness to non-traditional candidates, and the process landed former IBM businessman Bruce Harreld.

Harreld, who had no academic administrative experience, met widespread criticism as a candidate - with faculty, student, and staff leaders urging the board not to hire him. After his hire, the Faculty Senate and UI Student Government issued votes of no confidence in the board, accusing it of disregarding shared governance values in hiring Harreld.

A committee involved in the UNI presidential search in 2016, noting events at UI, indicated a terminal degree was a 'strongly preferred” qualification in its next president. The Board of Regents in December hired Mark Nook, then-chancellor at Montana State University Billings who earned a doctorate in astronomy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1990.

Monday's discussion about requirements for Iowa State's next president related to a section of the faculty handbook that talks about the 'general faculty,” a legislative body consisting of all tenured, tenure-eligible, and non-tenure-eligible faculty. The handbook states the ISU president chairs the general faculty, which Freeman said indicates the president must be a faculty member.

But Rico-Gutierrez said, 'There are other ways of being a member of the faculty.”

'There are multiple ways of achieving this, and we'll determine that in follow-up meetings,” he said.

The group on Monday also discussed the message they intend to send would-be candidates - including the pros and cons of taking the job. Committee members identified losses in legislative support, federal research funding cuts, relations and occasional tensions with the Board of Regents, and a growing student body with limited faculty resources among the challenges on campus.

They cited, first and foremost, the students and the veracity of their talent, inquisitiveness, and motivation among the campus' greatest strengths. They also praised esteemed faculty and the research they're conducting, the importance of the land-grant mission, and the larger community as draws to Ames.

The committee on Monday reviewed an updated draft timeline for the search that moves an anticipated hire from early October to Oct. 23. The new timeline also includes a meeting between the Board of Regents and the search committee after the finalists visit campus and participate in open forums - something that did not happen during the UI search but did occur before Nook's hire at UNI.

New timeline:

This week and next week, AGB Search, the firm hired to facilitate the search, will coordinate listening sessions across the Ames campus;

June 26, the search committee will receive a draft advertisement for the post;

June 30, the committee will complete a draft advertisement review;

July 6, the university will post advertisements for the position and officially launch the search;

Aug. 24 will be the deadline for applications - although later applications still might be considered;

Sept. 12, the search committee will meet and select semifinalists;

Sept. 27 and 28, the search committee will interview semifinalists and choose finalists;

Oct. 9-13, finalists will come to Ames for on-campus public visits;

Oct. 23, the Board of Regents will meet with the search committee, interview finalists, and choose a next president.