Regents must get serious about picking chancellors

An editorial  —  10/07/2008 5:39 am

The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents did a fine job of hiring a new chancellor for the system's flagship campus at Madison -- respected scholar and administrator Biddy Martin -- but the board's chancellor searches do not always turn out well.

No one doubts, for instance, that the regents blew it when they hired a chancellor for the UW-Parkside campus who, it was eventually revealed, had been the subject of a no-confidence vote by the faculty of his former campus in 2006 and remained the subject of an ongoing federal investigation into whether he mishandled grant money.

That hire had to resign and it is fair to say that the regents were even more embarrassed than he was.

Now, as the board prepares to begin a new search for a UW-Parkside chancellor -- and carries forward searches for new chancellors at UW-Green Bay and UW-River Falls -- it is clear that the 18 regents need to make sure that they have enough information to make sound hiring decisions.

"(We) have to do a better job in the future," admits Michael Falbo, a regent from Milwaukee who chaired the initial Parkside search committee.

Falbo says the vetting process, which in the past had the regents conducting brief interviews with candidates for chancellorships before making choices, provided too little time for in-depth inquiry. "I've found that I didn't feel capable of making a decision after spending about a half hour or 45 minutes with each candidate one right after another," explained Falbo.

Falbo is right to recognize the need for regents to demand more thorough reference checks on candidates and to attend visits by finalists to campuses. The process that selected Martin as UW-Madison chancellor worked because most of the regents took it seriously. That has not always been the case with consideration of contenders for other chancellorships.

Unfortunately, not all regents "get it."

Regent David Walsh of Madison, who chaired the committee that recommended the hiring Martin, claims the Parkside fiasco was "an aberration."

Walsh is wrong.

The problem with the Parkside pick was that most regents treated the process casually -- as they do many of their responsibilities.

For the most part, regents are political appointees who feel little sense of accountability. They are more interested in adding lines to their own resumes than in checking the resumes of candidates for chancellorships.

We have long argued that the state should consider a new model for choosing regents -- we always prefer election to appointment of people in positions of public trust -- that would promote accountability. But that's a long-term reform. In the short term, the regents must do a better job. They can begin by taking seriously their responsibility to choose the best and brightest chancellors for Wisconsin's great state university campuses.

An editorial  —  10/07/2008 5:39 am