Teleconferencing

Over the years, I have participated in many telephone interviews of potential candidates for positions at Hofstra as well as for not-for-profit boards that I have participated on. Interviewing candidates in this way has always struck me as second best (but certainly better than not participating). Inevitably you miss much of the back and forth that takes place, you miss some of the reaction of the candidate and that of board members, and you seem somewhat out of sync with what is happening. In between interviews, at those times when there are multiple interviews scheduled, there are also typically multiple conversations of the board members present and here too it is very hard to participate in a meaningful way.

I have also participated in board meeting over the phone and have even participated in a few teleconference board meetings a number years ago. Phone board meetings have the same disjointed feel that interviews have, and the early teleconferencing was often somewhat of a blur with resolution that matched my vision when I’m not wearing glasses. And then there were those cases where the video and audio were not quite synchronized, which is just plain annoying. Or those cases where I needed to go to a special facility on campus to participate.

You can imagine how pleased I was when an academic consortium of provosts that the University belongs to, decided to interview three candidates for the executive director position by teleconferencing. The candidates and the present executive director would be at the home school of the consortium with that provost present, and two additional provosts, including me, would participate by teleconference. Of course, there was the alternative of traveling to Virginia but that would turn three hours worth of interviews into at least a full day away from the office.

Everything I needed was on a laptop on my desk and at the appointed hour of 5:15 I connected. There on the screen was the person being interviewed, the “home” provost and the present executive director, the other provost participating and me. All right in front of me, all crystal clear, and each of the three interviews and the conversations in between and at the end worked as well as if we were all there in person. Going forward, I will certainly make use of this capability much more frequently. And now that I think about it, since I have used “facetime” on an iPhone and iPad a number of times with good success, I don’t know why I was so reluctant in this case to take advantage of the benefits of technology. So much of what we do and especially how we do it has changed and overall the advantages clearly outweigh any disadvantages.

The Final Candidates

We are just completing our search for the founding dean of our School of Engineering and Applied Science.  The finalists are all impressive but the search process itself has also been impressive.  In doing a search, the process and transparency matter as much as the results.  This was made clear in a recent conversation with a friend who is visiting another school for a semester.  This school doesn’t have a tradition of shared governance, doesn’t provide for a strong faculty voice even on faculty issues, doesn’t have open searches for key positions, and doesn’t provide for transparency.  Consequently, the faculty who should take key leadership roles and who would make a clear and positive difference, just sit on the sidelines as much as they can or else they look to leave.

Our process started with the election of the 6 faculty representatives on the search committee, which in this case came from the two departments involved in the new school, engineering and computer science.  Given the respective sizes of the department, four engineering faculty (including the department chair) were elected and two computer faculty (also including the department chair).  In addition to the faculty there are three senior administrators (including me) and three trustees .  The faculty, administrators and our search firm consultant next determined a preliminary search timetable and also determined where ads and announcement should go in addition to the search/recruitment activities that all of us, especially the search firm, would be involved in.

All of us looked at every resume that came in. There was no preliminary screening undertaken, but there was a firm commitment on the part of every person on the committee that we would preserve all candidates’ confidentiality up to the point that they had been selected to be, and agreed to be finalists. Once a person became a finalist, the identities of the finalists would be made known to all the faculty and we would then undertake comprehensive due diligence.

Coming up with a list of individuals to interview was not easy.  First, we had many highly qualified candidates and second we were sometimes far apart initially on some of the preliminary ranking.  We kept at it and ultimately came up with a list of 10 candidates to interview.  Not every committee member voted in favor of all ten.  Most did however, and those who didn’t at least knew that their voices had been heard and considered.

As a committee, we interviewed every candidate for an hour.  We did 4 interviews on the first day; 6 on the second; and the final two shortly thereafter.  Though in previous high level academic searches, we have interviewed up to 8 candidates on a single day, I am more and more certain that up to four in a single day is the right number and that 6 or 8 is simply too many given the attention that needs to be paid to each.

Once the interviews were complete, we also completed our list of finalists.  Just as we were doing so, one superior candidate withdrew from the search for personal reasons but the pool was robust enough that we could just move on.  Once again we did not all agree on every finalist.  But there was a high level of agreement as we fully discussed every candidate and provided all the time necessary to make all views known and bring all pertinent facts to the attention of the committee. 

And here we are, the finalists are selected, and checking of references is underway.  But we do more than just check with the names on the list that the candidate has provided us with.  We insist on checking off the list as well, and many of us on the committee are making use of the contacts we have at the schools the candidates work at.

We have also scheduled an entire day of follow up meetings with each of the finalists, including a key meeting with the President of the University as well as important meetings with the faculty, other academic deans,  students, the Provost’s office, and, if time permits, some community leaders in related areas.  Those follow up meetings have started to take place. I can’t predict the person to be chosen as yet, but I know already that this process works very well.  And now stay tuned; I think the best is yet to come. 

Searching for Deans

The dean position has become one of the most challenging administrative positions in higher education. Not only does a dean need to provide long term as well as day to day academic leadership but the dean also needs to be a willing and, over time, successful fundraiser.  To find a good dean, colleges and universities typically undertake a national search and often use a “head hunter” to help make sure that the effort is as comprehensive as possible.  I am presently involved in two deans’ searches, both for very important schools at Hofstra University. We are looking for a business school dean and also a communication dean.  We started with almost 250 candidates for these positions.  As in any search, it takes almost no time to dramatically reduce the number.  The reality is that almost two thirds of the applicants for these positions have almost no qualifications whatsoever for the job.  The best example comes not from this search but from an earlier search where a brand new college graduate wrote that he wanted to work in higher education and felt that dean would certainly be a good starting position.  Who could argue with logic like this?