ELIZABETH PRESTON
WESTFIELD — State education officials are exerting more oversight in the search for a Westfield State University president than when Dr. Evan S. Dobelle was hired in 2007.
New guidelines for the search and selection of state university and community college presidents which went into effect last year will now give the Commissioner and Board of the state’s Department of Higher Education more authority in the selection of school presidents.
These guidelines were in the works prior to the controversy over Dobelle’s travel and spending that embroiled the institution last summer.
The Board of Higher Education approved the new measures in June 2013 in response to state lawmakers seeking direct involvement by the Department of Higher Education in the areas of presidential searches, performance reviews and their compensation.
“The Department of Higher Education developed these guidelines in response to FY2013 Budget language, which included a requirement to establish guidelines and procedures for the search, selection, appointment, compensation, evaluation and removal of the chief executive officers of community colleges.” said Rachael Neff, spokesperson for the Department of Higher Education. “The BHE held a six-month comment period on the guidelines, and during that time held three feedback sessions with State University and Community College Trustees.”
Neff added that the new guidelines are based “on the Community College presidential search and selection guidelines” which were issued by the BHE on October 16, 2012 with some moderate changes, including shifting the BHE/DHE role on the search committees from non-voting observer to full voting member and therefore putting a state-level voice in the process from the drafting of the position description all the way through to the selection and recommendation of a finalist.
“The new guidelines engage the Board of Higher Education in the presidential selection process in a more meaningful way through a partnership instead of a rubber stamp-type of approval,” she said.
Westfield State University administration welcomes increased state oversight.
“As we begin the presidential search process we fully expect that everyone will go the extra mile and take the time necessary to ensure the search is conducted with integrity, inclusiveness and with the best interests of our students at heart,” said spokesperson Molly Watson. “We will continue to update the community as information becomes available.”
Watson stated that the school has drafted an outline to be submitted to DHE Commissioner Richard Freeland for review that notifies him of their intent to begin a search immediately and details their proposed process for implementation.
The last time the University composed a presidential search committee, it was composed of four members and enlisted the help of consultants, which included then-Trustee Carol Katz, and current Trustees Kevin Queenin and the Hon. Elizabeth Scheibel.
Queenin was the chairman of the Westfield State Foundation at the time, while Foundation Director Bill Hogan also served on the search committee in the summer of 2006. The committee also included Corrine Ebbs of the Massachusetts State College Association, Dr. David Horner of EFL Associates, an executive consulting firm based out of Boston and the committee was chaired by Gina Golash, a former member of the University’s Board of Trustees.
Other consultants involved in the Dobelle selection, according to minutes from Trustee meetings from the summer of 2006, included Kathryn Larimore of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, William Lopes and Gerry Tetrault of the MSCA, Robert Mailloux of the APA, and Danielle White, a student from the University.
Other “non-unit” consultants included Nicholas Wojtowicz of the University’s IT Department and Carlton Pickron, the University’s current Vice President of Student Affairs.
Dr. Kimberly Tobin, former Director of Graduate and Continuing Education at the University and now the interim vice president of administration and finance, served as a consultant in 2006, as a member of the MSCA. Timothy Murphy, the then-Director of Human Resources at the unviersity, was brought in to work with the committee, too.
“In the last search, we worked with a search firm. We had a committee. We had a failed search. We had a second search,” Tobin said. “I think hindsight is 20/20… We had a process and we went through the process and did everything we had to do throughout that process.”
“I could tell you now what went wrong, but at the time, if we did it over again, would be have a different outcome? Maybe, because we’re a little further along in an Internet-type place,” Tobin said. “I don’t think there was anything that went wrong in that we went through every step of the process the way it was set up at that point in time.”
Tobin spoke of “failed search” that yielded four candidates, which included current State Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs and then-Westfield Mayor Rick Sullivan, only to see the committee decide to go back to the drawing board and begin the search anew.
“I don’t remember the specifics of why we didn’t (stick with the four candidates). I think some of the people had stepped out of the search,” Tobin said. “I think some candidates withdrew themselves, and I think there just wasn’t concensus about who the right candidate was in the failed search. But there was concensus at the time we hired Dr. Dobelle.”
An article which appeared in The Reminder in February 2007 stated that the final five candidates were in fact reduced to four after Patrick J. Schloss, president of Northern State University in South Dakota, withdrew his candidacy.
Joining Sullivan among the four semifinalists, were Nancy Kleniewski, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at then-Bridgewater State College, Rod David Smith, former president of Ramapo College of New Jersey and then-president and CEO of Rod Smith Consulting Group, and Roger W. Bowen, former president of State University of New York (SUNY)-New Paltz and then-general secretary of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
Student representative White said in the article she was against the motion to extend the search, while Student Government Association President Mike Mazeika said the students preferred Bowen and Smith, candidates which Tobin also said were favored by students and faculty.
“The BHE has a voting member on the search committee now, and this past week Commissioner Freeland notified us that Henry Thomas, chair of the UMass Board of Trustees and president of the Urban League of Springfield, will be the BHE’s representative on the search committee,” Preston said. “The intention is that, when they come back for the June 26 board meeting, to by then identify who the rest of the search committee will be.”
“The complications with this has been that we have a lot of vacancies on the Board of Trustees,” she said. “I know they are hoping to have new trustees seated on the board who can participate in the search.”
“Under the best of circumstances, this is a slow process. It’s not like you’re going to see lots of quick action on this,” Preston said. “The expectation is that the committee will be identified by the end of June, and that they will begin the process of selecting a search firm, and that the search will ramp up in late August and early September. By early spring, they will have identified who the next president is.”
Preston said that the next president will most likely take office on July 1, 2015.
