A search committee that is helping to find the next chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has begun reviewing candidates for that post.
On Wednesday, the 17-member committee met with the hired executive- search firm Greenwood/Asher & Associates to talk about the applicants and potential candidates, committee Chairman Bob Denman said. The applications were not immediately available Wednesday -- the firm's consultants were headed to the airport in the afternoon -- and the group is still taking applications and nominations for the post. Denman said he didn't know off the top of his head how many people had officially applied.
"We're pretty pleased with what we're seeing," Denman said. "They certainly are not all alike. We evaluate those and find the ones that are the right fit so that we can get a recommendation to [University of Arkansas System] President [Donald] Bobbitt."
The committee is an advisory group that will ultimately make a recommendation to Bobbitt on the next UALR chancellor. Joel Anderson, 74, currently holds the post, with an annual salary of $219,406, but he announced last year that he plans to retire June 30. Anderson rose through the ranks at the university from a political science assistant professor in the '70s to chancellor, a post he's held for the past 13 years.
The committee is working alongside the search firm, which is based in Miramar Beach, Fla. It is the same firm the system office used in a search for a new leader at its campus in Fayetteville.
For both searches, the system office contracted with Greenwood/Asher to help pick out candidates deemed a good fit for the job. It comes with a price tag of up to $155,000, though the Fayetteville search cost $121,844.81, said UA System spokesman Nate Hinkel.
As in the previous search, the UA System said, the committee meetings are not open to the public.
"This committee is not a governing body and has not been delegated any decision-making authority," Hinkel said.
A 2006 attorney general's opinion says that whether search committees are subject to the Freedom of Information Act's open-meetings section depends on the decision-making power of the committee and its role in the selection process. Former Gov. Mike Beebe, then the attorney general, wrote that if a search committee is purely advisory, it is not subject to the open-records law. But if it makes decisions, such as screening applicants, then it is.
The search teams have set up a website, along with an advertisement, for the position at ualr.edu/chancellor-search/.
The site shows the group is in the planning phase, or the second of six phases. The original advertisement says the selection process will continue until the position is filled, but it also encouraged applicants to submit their information by April 1.
The advertisement emphasizes the 11,924-student university's community engagement classification by the Carnegie Foundation and spells out the school's role in community issues, such as race and ethnicity, criminal justice and education.
"What the committee is looking for is someone that will have a set of great direction, a real visionary," Denman said, "someone with a great mission for the institution, someone who is a good manager, someone who will go out and help develop other sources of revenue."
The university wants to become one of the top metropolitan, community-engaged research universities among members of the 16-state Southern Regional Education Board, according to the ad. Part of that vision includes establishing a community connection center and strategies to target underrepresented student populations, the ad states.
The committee wants the new chancellor to make the university more aggressive in research and enrollment management areas, Denman said. The ad also says that "urban, metropolitan research university experience" is desired.
"We've long thought that Little Rock needs a great university," Denman said, adding that the school has been chipping away at reaching that long-term goal. "The only way we'll be a great Southern city is to have a great university. I think [to get there] it's more visionary leadership, more buy-in and commitment to the community. It's UALR doing it in tandem with our local leaders, government leaders, private business leaders."
Metro on 04/07/2016