The search for University of Wisconsin’s next chancellor has officially begun.
UW’s Search and Screen Committee met in a public forum yesterday to begin procedures to select the new chancellor in a nearly year-long collaborative process.
UW System President Kevin Reilly addressed the 25-member committee that will be responsible for submitting five finalists next spring. He said the primary responsibility for the committee is to conduct a nationwide search to form a pool of well-qualified candidates and select five people in unranked order to forward to the Board of Regents.
Reilly stressed the importance of diversity as the committee searches for campus’s next leader.
“We are interested in a diverse pool,” Reilly said. “Obviously diversity is very important to this institution, to the system, to the board, to the state and, certainly, as our student body changes and becomes more diverse in every way.”
He added it is equally important to choose candidates that are well-qualified to ultimately run the university.
Reilly said while each member of the committee represents the perspectives of their own academic department or program, he urged members to try to lift themselves and enterprise above their own departments throughout the search.
“I urge you not to think of your task here as finding somebody who walks, swings, quacks, flies and thinks like you,” Reilly said. “It is a natural human tendency to want to do that, but if you do that you probably won’t do a very good job because this person has to have such a wide range of understanding.”
Reilly also specified contenders for the chancellor position must have spent significant time with a variety of external audiences, a requirement he said is extraordinarily important for the leader of a campus working with such institutions as the UW Foundation, WARF, UW Alumni Association, federal government investment, state government connection and others.
He said anyone who comes into the university must have the capacity to appreciate and understand the academic culture and shared governance as it is practiced here at UW. These values, he added, are vital to establish and maintain trust with students, staff and faculty.
Regent David Walsh said the candidates must have an understanding of shared governance.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to getting along with the dean, understanding the faculty and the staff and the labor issues,” Walsh said. “To me, that is the most fundamental thing about the candidates that you bring to us, they’ve got to understand the University of Wisconsin-Madison.”
Search and Screen Committee Chair David McDonald said he was excited to see the composition of the committee in terms of the representation of various backgrounds and experience of members.
McDonald also said he does not agree with the idea of his position of the chair as comprising the role of an agenda setter or conversation director.
“I think my role is more to moderate – to keep discussion on focus and to try and foster first an atmosphere in which people feel encouraged and absolutely unhesitant about contributing,” McDonald said.
McDonald added ideally he hopes the committee can reach an internal consensus that satisfied all parties.
