FAYETTEVILLE -- The ability to relate to various groups -- including rural lawmakers who decide on higher education funding -- is among the most desired characteristics for the next chancellor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, UA System President Donald Bobbitt told faculty members Monday at a meeting of UA's Campus Faculty.
Bobbitt responded to a question from an audience of about 80 UA faculty gathered to hear him discuss details of the search to replace Chancellor G. David Gearhart, who announced in January plans to retire in July.
Few details about the search were shared by Bobbitt, who told faculty the UA System will conduct a national search both to find top candidates and to "propagate the reputation of the institution on a national scale."
"Certainly with the top 50 aspirations of this institution, that is something that we can't minimize," Bobbitt said, referring to an oft-repeated goal to make UA among the top 50 public research institutions nationally. In the latest U.S. News & World Report magazine rankings, UA ranked 69th among such institutions.
Bobbitt said a committee is now reviewing proposals from search firms eager to help find Gearhart's replacement. Asked about the top characteristics he's looking for in the person replacing Gearhart, Bobbitt emphasized the importance of communicating.
"I think communication, strong communication skills and being able to relate to a very, very diverse constituency," Bobbitt said, explaining that the chancellor must remember "that our appropriation bills are voted upon by individuals who come from rural parts of the state" with different outlooks than people in northwest Arkansas who may be a part of a corporate structure.
"The University of Arkansas can easily meet the needs of both entities," Bobbitt said, listing transparency and integrity among other key attributes, as the next chancellor is "going to have to tell people in Little Rock things they don't want to hear."
Bobbitt shared some details about the composition of a yet-to-be named search committee that will make hiring recommendations, though not the final hiring decision. Bobbitt said the 15 to 17 person group will include at least three to four faculty members.
Bobbitt said no student will be on the committee, noting that members will be asked to agree to a code of confidentiality about details discussed by the search committee.
"I think someone from Student Affairs can represent the students," Bobbitt said.
Other committee members will likely represent areas including UA System administration, the board of trustees, and the business community, he said.
With other top UA officials leaving, including the provost and dean of the business school, Bobbitt said, "I think the people that you would want in these leadership positions want to know who they're going to work for," Bobbitt said, adding, "what we need to do posthaste is we need to move forward with the chancellor search."
While he did not specify a time line, as far as candidates visiting campus, "we want them here in the fall to meet students" and faculty, Bobbitt said. An interim chancellor will "probably" be necessary "even if we move pretty fast," he said.
Asked for more details about an interim chancellor, Bobbitt said he has a plan that will be explained "in a short while." He did say he has a general rule that a person named to an interim position cannot be a candidate for the full-time role.
Another faculty member asked what happens if a UA System president chooses a direction but a campus chancellor disagrees. Bobbitt said in any organization, some make the decisions and others must accept them.
"We have an org chart which puts me at the top," Bobbitt told faculty. "I think that's pretty clear."
He became UA System president in 2011 but is very familiar with UA, having served as a faculty member and dean of UA's J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, its largest academic college.
"I will tell you that my own personal style -- and I think you know this from when I was dean -- is that it's much easier to walk with people through the doorway than to try to push them. And so there's nothing I think we would do of any magnitude where it wouldn't be a very active consultation between the campus leadership and the board of trustees and my office."
Gearhart and later UA's Faculty Senate made public statements last year expressing concern about UA being adversely affected by a loan drawn from system reserves to help pay for the new eVersity, an online-only venture pitched by Bobbitt as a way to help adults earn a degree who may have once attended college but failed to finish.
Asked about the relationship between UA's online programs and those at the UA System level, Bobbitt said UA "should be devoting it's resources and energy towards serving those students that are most appropriate for the institution."
The eVersity "will serve a different type of student," Bobbitt said, adding that "I think your Global Campus has done a good job," referring by name to the UA department offering online course and degree programs. "You advertise in upscale venues where people who can afford the education and want the education and reputation that this institution can offer will see the ad and respond," Bobbitt said.
He contrasted that advertise with the approach to be taken by eVersity in attracting "a 35-year-old single parent in rural Arkansas who needs additional education and training so they can assume a higher-paying job."
Bobbitt referred at various times in his remarks to possible new federal mandates -- giving the example of perhaps being required to tracking the income of graduates -- and also "external pressures" he said might greatly affect some UA System campuses, though perhaps less so at UA-Fayetteville.
"It's not going to be like it was," Bobbitt said, telling the group that they will have to pull together and that UA-Fayetteville may be called upon to assist with the UA System's statewide mission.
Metro on 03/17/2015