UA chancellor search plans interview round at Dallas airport hotel

University of Arkansas System President Donald Bobbitt.
University of Arkansas System President Donald Bobbitt.

The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville chancellor search committee is holding out-of-state interviews later this month as it tries to narrow down the number of people to consider.

University of Arkansas System President Donald Bobbitt said he did not yet know which applicants and "people of interest" would be invited to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Bobbitt has invited all of the 17 search committee members and expects travel to cost about $500 per person.

"The Dallas airport is a lot bigger than Little Rock's airport," Bobbitt said. "In Dallas, you have flights coming in multiple times per day from multiple locations. It's more convenient than trying to funnel everyone through Little Rock."

The meetings -- tentatively scheduled for Sept. 24 through Sept. 26 -- are the next step for the committee searching for G. David Gearhart's replacement. Gearhart, 63, stepped down from his $339,010 post at the end of July after serving at the helm of the state's largest university since 2008.

The search for the new chancellor comes at a time when UA is facing competition from other higher education institutions with leadership vacancies. Nearby, the University of Mississippi is looking for a new leader for its flagship campus in Oxford. The University of Washington and University of Delaware are also on the hunt. And Thursday, the University of Iowa filled its presidential vacancy when regents unanimously selected Bruce Harreld.

"These searches were never really easy," said Bill Funk, president of Dallas-based executive search firm R. William Funk. "I think they're increasingly difficult because the pools are very shallow. And when you begin these searches, everybody on the search committee and everybody in the university thinks, 'Gee, this is such a wonderful position. We could have 25 to 50 A-plus players.' when in reality there are only five to 10 people who kind of separate themselves."

Candidates are increasingly concerned about confidentiality, making it harder for recruiting, Funk said. Some candidates simply won't play if names could be publicly released, he said. Others are concerned about appearances if they didn't get the job.

"They think, 'Who will want to hire them if they weren't selected for the previous position?'" he said. "Most boards are most sensitive to their sitting president looking elsewhere. They are willing to forgive though, especially if the president is at a bigger and better place. After two or three times, the board begins to wonder if they're focusing. What the board feels is almost disloyalty."

So far, UA's vacancy has brought in 15 applicants, according to the UA System.

"I'm thrilled at the quality [of the applicants]," Bobbitt said. "There's some academics, some nonacademics in there but with incredible management experience."

UA will give the other institutions searching for leaders a run for their money, he said.

"It's an institution that is big enough that the students could be presented with the full array of educational opportunities," he said. "At the same time, it's not so big that the person who sits in the chancellor's role -- she or he -- can actively participate in the life of the campus."

Northwest Arkansas is booming, too, said Bobbitt, who has worked on the Fayetteville campus as dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and as a professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry, including a stint as department chairman.

"The difficulty, honestly, is getting people to look at the opportunity," he said. "In my entire time as a chair of department of chemistry, the most difficult job was getting people to apply to the jobs. Once they visited Northwest Arkansas, once they visited the campus, once they visited the department, I had no problem trying to convince them to take the job."

What Bobbitt is looking for most in a candidate is one who can help the Fayetteville campus achieve top-50 public research university status. The status is a ranking by the U.S. News and World Report magazine, which looks at graduation and retention rates, alumni giving and faculty resources, and other measures. In the latest edition, the magazine ranked UA-Fayetteville as 69th in the nation.

"That is a very lofty goal, a very worthwhile goal, and a very, very -- maybe with one more very -- difficult goal to achieve," he said. "Because the schools in front of you aren't going to lay down and let you pass them; they're also trying to improve. So what I'm looking for in a chancellor ... is someone who has been in an institution that has moved the needle and has been instrumental in developing the plan that moved the needle and helping carry it out."

The status doesn't guarantee anything, said Bobbitt and Laura Jacobs, associate vice chancellor of university relations and the chairman of the chancellor search committee.

It doesn't change the fact that the university has been working to improve on some of the measures, Jacobs said.

"It gives us something we can hang our quality hat on," she said. "Attaining this ranking is a tangible way to see our successes relative to our peers."

It's hard to put a finger on direct advantages of the status, Bobbitt said, but they do accrue. Faculty are considered for various academies, he said.

"The act of engaging in self-improvement as an institution is probably the biggest benefit," he said.

Top-50 status takes focus, Bobbitt said.

"And what that means is you have to make difficult decisions because, unless you're in a situation where resources are completely unrestrained -- I think that's Oz or some Nirvana that doesn't exist -- you have to decide what you can be exceptional at," he said. "Not just good. Exceptional. And then you have to devote your resources and your energies to achieving exceptional performance in those areas."

Bobbitt and the search committee have received emails encouraging them to keep other priorities in regard to the new chancellor in mind.

They range from the Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation, which asked that the next chancellor have an awareness of higher education's role and ability to affect agriculture, to a Rice University employee who asked that the new UA chancellor prioritize environmental studies. Margarita Solorzano, the executive director of the Hispanic Women's Organization of Arkansas, urged the search committee in a four-page letter to select a candidate "who acknowledges the contributions and needs of our diverse population."

A UA-Fayetteville graduate student emailed Bobbitt in June with concerns that the 17-member search committee didn't include student representation. Associated Student Government President Tanner Bone, 21, said a student-first mentality would be a good trait. Bone, an international business senior, added that the student body had great trust in the search committee, which includes the university's dean of students and student affairs.

Bobbitt said the leader of a comprehensive research university has a number of qualities that are important.

"The [candidates] we're looking for, when you look at people who have been at large institutions like Fayetteville or even bigger, if you weren't exposed to the full range of brilliance at the university, you didn't have a very high position," Bobbitt said of juggling everyone's stake in the search. "By picking people who have been there and done that, you're assured that you're going to be attracting individuals or getting an individual who has a keen appreciation for all that makes a comprehensive university wonderful."

The search committee, working alongside the hired search firm Greenwood/Asher & Associates, has been tasked with picking out the cream of the crop. The firm comes at a price of up to $155,000. The committee has worked on fine-tuning the advertisement, job description and promotional materials.

In June, it discussed many things, including the relationship between the Miramar Beach, Fla.-based search firm and the committee. The group also talked about its code of ethics, which includes a rule that allows only the chairman to speak to the news media, according to documents released to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette through a Freedom of Information Act request.

"We spent a lot of time on FOIA and preserving the confidentiality of the process -- in perpetuity," Jacobs wrote in an email to a fellow committee member.

By then, the group was already looking ahead to interview applicants in September, "probably at an airport hotel out of state," another email from committee member Howard Brill -- then-chairman of the panel -- shows.

In July, the search firm said it was actively engaged in recruitment "conversations."

"Prospects expressed an interest in opportunities to expand corporate/global relationships," the firm wrote in a July 20 update. "Prospects are impressed with the corporate community and the diversity of the population attracted by the corporate sector."

Bobbitt said many prospects first ask him about state funding for higher education institutions. Upon learning the General Assembly left funding intact, prospects "immediately continue the conversation," he said.

The committee last met on Aug. 21 when members received a binder with two sections, one on candidates and another on leaders in higher education, documents show. There were about 30 people in both sections.

"Our task is to identify individuals with whom we would like to have conversations," Brill wrote. "The binders will be collected at the end of the meeting."

The email notes that none of that information would be online. A later email shows the committee planned to pare down the list of about 30 to between six and 12.

Now, the search committee is planning to meet in Dallas in September. The plan, as emails show, is for the committee to arrive on Sept. 24 and hold "conversations" over the next two days at the Hyatt and Grand Hyatt hotels, which are at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The committee will stay at the Hyatt on a "most reasonable price of $149 for hotel rooms," Brill said in an email. The prospects will be housed at the Grand Hyatt, where sleeping rooms are $400, he said.

UA plays Texas A&M University in a football game in Arlington that Saturday.

Bobbitt said the meeting is a chance for the applicants and "people of interest" to learn more about the position.

"It's very much a two-way conversation," he said, adding that he thought it was too early for the candidates to go to campus and talk to large constituencies.

Documents show the search committee wants to have campus meetings beginning in October. Interested candidates can always visit the campus on their own, Bobbitt acknowledged.

"I think that's always an option for people, but when people come to campus, then it becomes a much more public event," he said. "I'm doing my darnedest. My job is trying to convince people to be formal candidates for the job. And it's a very competitive environment out there."

A Section on 09/05/2015

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