With less than six weeks left before Chancellor Albert Carnesale is scheduled to step down, the UCLA community knows nothing more about its next chief executive than it did in September when Carnesale announced he would vacate his post.
The University of California’s executive search process is kept confidential, with the 17-member chancellor search committee meeting in closed sessions, and the only information that will be released to the public will be after UC President Robert Dynes has selected a candidate and has forwarded his choice to the UC Board of Regents for approval.
UC officials released a brief statement last week on the search’s status, saying only that it is still in progress and the search committee will meet again soon to “continue its work.”
That announcement came just more than a week after the Los Angeles Times reported Syracuse University Provost Deborah Freund, identified as the UC’s top pick, withdrew from the search while in negotiations with UC President Robert Dynes.
The UC has not commented on Freund’s withdrawal or even acknowledged that she was ever considered for the position, other than to say that the search is ongoing and no candidate has been selected.
UCLA spokeswoman Carol Stogsdill said Carnesale has not been asked to stay longer than June 30 as a result of the progress of the search.
But not all searches for top-level executives are done using the UC’s confidential methodology. Partially open or completely open processes are common at other universities.
In a study done by Nick Estes, former general counsel for the University of New Mexico, 30 percent of nationwide searches for chancellor openings follow the closed process like the UC’s, in which the identity of the candidate of choice is made public only at the conclusion of the entire search process.
Alberto Pimentel, vice president at A.T. Kearney, the search firm hired to recruit candidates, said the committee will not have to start from “ground zero” and that they are in “good shape” with respect to progress.
UC officials say they use a confidential process because candidates may not want their current employers to be aware of their desire to leave.
“The primary reason (the search is kept private) is out of respect for the candidates. Identifying the candidates would acknowledge their interests in other opportunities, which could put them in awkward situations with their own institutions if they’re not selected,” said UC spokesman Paul Schwartz.
But other schools do not adhere to such a policy with regard to searches for senior positions.
There are different degrees of openness in executive searches, which include entirely open, partially open and completely closed processes, Pimentel said.
Pimentel, who has conducted searches for all three types of processes, said the UC uses a closed system because executives at senior-level positions from other institutions would be the strongest candidates and the university “simply can’t afford to have their names shared publicly without risking or damaging their relationships with people at their current institutions.”
“You won’t get the same caliber of candidates in your pool to begin with because they will choose not to participate if it is known to be an open process,” he said.
From his experience in approaching potential candidates for higher-education executive searches, one of the first questions prospective candidates ask is whether the search process is open or closed, Pimentel said.
Just three months ago, Freund was one of the top candidates for president at the University of Arizona, where the search process is partially open.
In that university’s search, the names of the top four candidates were made public, after which forums were held for public input.
“We strongly believe in keeping the names of prospects confidential until they have been invited to campus visits,” said Anne Barton, the assistant executive director for Public Affairs and Special Projects for the Arizona Board of Regents.
Pimentel said lack of transparency is an “understandable concern,” which is why there are also “very good reasons” why an institution would want to have an open process.
“(An open or partially open process) would allow the campus community to look at the candidates you’re considering,” Pimentel said.
Recently, the University of Nevada, Reno, held a completely open process in which everything from discussion of candidates within the committee to candidate interviews were all done in the presence of press.
Nevada and Florida are the only states that conduct all hiring and executive searches in public, according to the Journal of College and University Law, as mandated by those states’ open-meeting and open-records laws.
While California schools are not bound by any similar state law, the California State University system, unlike the UC, voluntarily has a partially open search process.
The partially open process in the case of the CSU system refers to making the names of the top four candidates vying for an executive position public.
The UCLA search committee has met three times and the date for the committee’s next meeting has not yet been announced.
After he steps down, Carnesale plans to take a year-long sabbatical until July 2007, at which point he will return to UCLA as a professor of public policy and mechanical and aerospace engineering. He will earn his current chancellor’s salary of $323,600 during the sabbatical in a package approved by the UC Board of Regents last week.