Faculty wants open search

Faculty members expressed concerns about the confidentiality surrounding the search for IU's next president Tuesday.\nSpeaking at the bi-weekly meeting of the Bloomington Faculty Council, law professor J. Alexander Tanford said keeping the names of possible candidates secret until the new president is announced keeps faculty members from learning important information about the University's next leader.\nHe said he only heard from colleagues about current IU President Adam Herbert's leadership style after he had already been named president and felt that information could have been important to the selection process.\n"We were concerned that information that comes from normal faculty to faculty communication was not getting to the search committee," Tanford said. "If the process remains closed, I urge the search committee to find ways in their closed to structure to facilitate that information." \nSeveral other faculty members and IU Student Associate Vice President Andrew Lauck echoed those sentiments.\nTrustee Sue Talbot, chair of the presidential search committee, said she sympathized with Tanford's comment, but it was also important to keep a certain level of confidentiality so that potential candidates would not jeopardize their current positions.\nTalbot encouraged faculty members to forward the names of possible candidates to her via e-mail and said there was still no target date for naming the next president.\n"Our current president has stated he will be here until 2008, and if it takes that long, it will last until 2008," she said.\nBFC President Ted Miller said he sent e-mails to members of the council asking what they would like to see from a new leader but received only "a handful and a half of responses."\nStill, he said, from those replies he gathered that faculty members are hoping for a president who understands the unique administrative structure of IU and one who will work more closely with the state.\n"A number of comments said this relationship is not what it needs to be, and the next president needs to work to improve this," Miller said.\nBrad Rateike, a spokesman for Gov. Mitch Daniels, said the governor is aware of the presidential searches at IU, Purdue University and Ivy Tech Community College. He has offered to help any way he can but is not directly involved in any of the searches.\n"He appointed the trustees," Rateike said. "That's enough."\nHerbert announced in June he would step down when his contract expires in 2008 or sooner if a replacement can be found. He came under heavy criticism from faculty last year after a lengthy chancellor search failed to name a candidate.\nThe BFC also discussed the first draft of a new policy on intellectual property. That 18-page document hopes to answer complicated questions about the ownership of patents and copyrights filed by faculty members.\nThe policy will be reviewed again next week at the University Faculty Council meeting, with a reading of the second draft scheduled for the Nov. 14 meeting.\nThe BFC will next meet Oct. 31.