Will Kent State’s next presidential search be open or closed?

Words and podcast by Collin Cunningham

On October 23, Kent State University President Beverly Warren announced that she would be leaving her position in July of 2019. Now that Warren’s five-year term has nearly reached its close, the university’s staff and students have turned their attention toward the Board of Trustees’ search efforts to find a new president.

Currently, the board has only revealed that they are committed to a national search and will publicly announce their plans once they make decisions in the next few weeks. Their next public meeting will take place on Wednesday, December 5.

The primary question here is will the board conduct an open or a closed search? The former of these would require Kent to reveal the names of all the applicants they’re looking at to take over Warren’s position throughout the entire process. A closed search, on the other hand, only discloses the name of finalist candidates.

I spoke with Pamela Grimm, the Chair of the Kent State Faculty Senate’s Executive Committee, prior to a meeting with other members of the Committee to discuss who would help in the search efforts.

“The process governing a presidential search is different from all other searches,” Grimm says. She supports the school having an open search.

“I think one of the real benefits of having open search is the involvement of all constituents that will be governed by who that person is,” Grimm says. “You have employees, you have customers, you have an entire community of people who will be led by the person who’s going to lead the organization. And, especially in the case when it’s a public institution, there’s a public oversight and a public responsibility as well.”

Mark Goodman, Kent professor and Knight Chair in scholastic journalism, believes transparency should triumph.

“I think when you’re talking about an agency that’s run by tax dollars, it’s really important for the public to have confidence in what that public agency is doing and be able to engage in effective oversight of that public agency by observing their activities,” Goodman says.

There’s only one good reason that Grimm can surmise to have a closed search: an increase in the total number of applicants, and even that comes with a caveat.

“We do know for a fact, and this is clear, the number of candidates will be smaller when it’s an open search,” she explains. “That’s unquestioned. The real question is, how does that influence the quality of the candidate pool. Just because it’s a smaller pool doesn’t mean it’s not as good a pool in terms of quality applicants.”

Kent State has faced backlash for their decisions to remain coy about search processes in the past, which is part of the reason that the status of this search is significant. Back in 2014, when the school first revealed they had chosen Beverly Warren replace then-president Lester Lefton, students and faculty alike expressed concern that the search that was conducted had been closed.

Some staff in Kent’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication even purchased a full-page ad in the student newspaper declaring “We’re Embarrassed ”.

When you consider Kent State’s perspective, it’s hard to blame them. In a day and age where many schools are run like private businesses, it only makes sense for a university want to maintain a degree of secrecy when it comes to their proceedings. Not to mention the fact that hiring someone to seek out candidates is a lot easier, and could yield greater results.

“Sometime, expediency does supersede policy when people are not thinking things through clearly,” Goodman says. “No one can doubt that it would be simpler for the university to run a search that is totally closed to the public. But that doesn’t mean, number one, legally they are able to do that or, two, that it’s the wise thing to do because the simplicity of the search is not the only goal.”

Another reason people were upset about this decision? Because it also meant the university was spending $250,000 to hire Storbeck/Pimental & Associates, a professional search firm based in Pennsylvania.

Section four of Kent’s University Policy and Procedures Regarding Search Procedures for Major Academic Administrative Officers states that “all members of a search committee represent the interest of the university as a whole, not merely those of a constituency. A search committee for president should include members from: the board, the faculty, administration, students, alumni, and such others as the board may deem necessary at the time.”

Whether the board decides to hold an open or closed search, keep that wish in mind. It says right there in the policy that Kent State wants its students to be on the search committee, which means your voice matters. If you’re unhappy with their ultimatum, then there are things you can do to fight it.