Regents won’t commit to releasing University of Iowa president finalist feedback before hire

Bruce Harreld answers a question during a Sept. 3, 2015, news conference inn Iowa City after being announced as the 21st president of the University of Iowa. The Iowa Board of Regents is scheduled to name the UI’s 22nd president Friday. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

IOWA CITY -- At 5 p.m. Monday, the University of Iowa presidential search committee stopped taking public feedback on the four finalists to succeed outgoing UI President Bruce Harreld.

It has several days to tabulate questionnaire results before presenting the findings to the Board of Regents on Wednesday. But the regents are not committing to publicly share the feedback before choosing a new president Friday.

“Feedback must first be reviewed for any potential redactions before being released and won’t be made public until that process is complete,” board spokesman Josh Lehman told The Gazette.

The deadline for submitting public feedback via the UI presidential search website was 5 p.m. Monday.

“Feedback submitted later will not be sent to the Board of Regents,” according to the UI presidential search site, which also states, “The Hawkeye community's feedback is essential to choosing the University of Iowa's next president.”

The search committee will meet in closed session Wednesday to both evaluate finalists and present public feedback to the regents before the board interviews candidates Thursday and Friday.

Lehman reported the board in past searches did not share the results of community-input surveys until after a hire, “as the review process takes time.“

Although the Board of Regents during the 2015 UI presidential search solicited public feedback in a similar fashion online, it disbanded the search committee earlier — negating that group’s role in tabulating and assessing public input.

That prompted the UI chapter of the American Association of University Professors to develop and disseminate its own survey of the 2015 finalists — polling 760 faculty, staff, students, and community members.

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The AAUP released its poll results before the board’s hire — showing only 2.5 percent of faculty thought Harreld was qualified for the presidency, paving the way for votes of no-confidence and a national sanction for the board’s disregard of shared governance values in its presidential hire.

In that UI leaders and the Board of Regents subsequently sat down to develop a set of best practices for future searches, the national AAUP has removed UI from its sanctions list.

Those best practices stress the importance of involving the search committee in collecting, tabulating, evaluating and reporting the community feedback to the board.

But the best practices don’t suggest ideal timing for public release of the community feedback.

Search committee makeup

The four presidential finalists are:

Hari Osofsky, dean of Penn State Law and the Penn State School of International Affairs.

Barbara Wilson, executive vice president and vice president for academic affairs for the University of Illinois System.

Wendy Hensel, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Georgia State University.

Daniel Clay, dean of the UI College of Education.

The 21-member search committee waded through 79 applications to first identify 12 semi-finalists and then pick four finalists to be named publicly and brought to campus.

Although Clay is the current dean of one of the university’s 12 colleges, creating a potential conflict, the College of Education is the only one not represented by a faculty member on the UI search committee, which was announced in November.

University of Iowa presidential search committee

Sandy Daack-Hirsch, associate professor and interim executive associate dean of the College of Nursing

John Keller, associate provost and dean of the Graduate College

David Cunning, professor of philosophy and department chair in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Armando Duarte, professor of dance and director of the bachelor of fine arts program in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Anjali Deshpande, clinical associate professor of epidemiology in the College of Public Health

Nicole Grosland, professor of biomedical engineering in the College of Engineering, and faculty athletics representative

Kay Hegarty, associate professor of practice in accounting in the Tippie College of Business

Teresa Marshall, professor and Michael W. Finkelstein Centennial Professor of Teaching in the College of Dentistry, and Faculty Senate vice president

Ali Salem, professor of pharmaceutical sciences and Lyle and Sharon Bighley endowed chair in the College of Pharmacy

Doug Van Daele, professor of otolaryngology, executive director of UI physicians, and vice dean of clinical affairs in the Carver College of Medicine

Joseph Yockey, professor and Michael and Brenda Sandler Faculty Fellow in Corporate Law in the College of Law, and Faculty Senate president

Liz Tovar, interim associate vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion

Heather Mineart, Staff Council president

Connor Wooff, Undergraduate Student Government president

Mackensie Graham, Graduate and Professional Student Government president

John Piegors, Graduate Student Senate and UE Local 896 COGS president

Richard Frauenholz, AFSCME Local 12 president

Cathy Glasson, SEIU Local 199 president

P. Sue Beckwith, alumna

Nancy Boettger, Board of Regents

Jim Lindenmayer, Board of Regents

(Source: University of Iowa)