IU searches questioned after high turnover rate

Dozens of top IU administrators have retired or taken positions at other schools and dozens more are expected to do the same in the next two years. While all say job turnover is unavoidable at a large university, some faculty and trustees disagree about how candidates should be selected.\nIU President Adam Herbert's Friday announcement that he will leave the University when his contract expires in 2008 added yet another vacancy to a list that already includes four IU schools' deans. \n"I believe that if you go across the University over the next five years, 40 percent of the top leadership positions will turn over," said trustee President Stephen Ferguson.\nFerguson has made it very public that he believes high-level job searches at IU move too slowly. Both he and trustee Vice President Patrick Shoulders said the board will begin examining the current search process at their February trustee meeting. Trustees will compare IU's search process to other universities in an effort to "fine tune" future committees.\nBut School of Public and Environmental Affairs professor Bob Kravchuk, a member of the chancellor search committee, said he and many of the faculty disagree with Ferguson's assessment of the search process.\nKravchuk said he believes Ferguson, who served as president of Bloomington-based Cook Group for many years, is drawing too heavily on his corporate experience in outlining search priorities.\n"You can't just put eight people in a room and make them find a new provost," Kravchuk said. "To do that completely misunderstands the nature of academic administration."\nFerguson said his primary concern is getting searches underway more quickly. The trustees will also work to make sure searches operate on a full calendar, rather than an academic calendar, and agree on the qualities and qualifications candidates should have before any are vetted.\nThe most recent search for a permanent IUB chancellor took 10 months and was put on hold during the summer. In the end, the committee recommended three candidates to Herbert, all of whom the president rejected. The failed chancellor search resulted in a public faculty uproar which lead to their recommendation that the trustees conduct a formal review of Herbert.\nKravchuk added that because the field of qualified academic administrators is thin compared to similar corporate positions and because the faculty must work so closely with University leaders in matters like securing grants and receiving tenure, it is important search committee members take the time to find the right candidate.\nCandidates for administrative positions should be made public, Kravchuk said. This practice is in sharp contrast to the search for an IUB chancellor in which committee members were instructed not to make names of potential candidates public.\n"When you have so much secrecy, you increase the chances of making a mistake," he said.\nThis year alone, both the dean and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences have announced they are taking jobs elsewhere. The University Libraries, Medical Sciences and Graduate schools are all without permanent leaders. An interim chancellor has led IU-Bloomington since 2003. \nUniversity leaders do not view these vacancies as unique or detrimental to IU. Administration turnover at universities across the country is particularly high, and the average term for presidents of major colleges has fallen to five years.\nBut Kravchuk and Ferguson both agreed that IU's recently developed leadership program, which grooms faculty members and administrators already at IU for larger roles in the University, will help to more quickly find many new administrators to fill current and future vacancies. \n"If we have 1,600 tenure-track faculty here in Bloomington, several could be good administrators," Kravchuk said. "And if we give them enough opportunities, one or two of them might step up and be the next Herman Wells"