Recently, Steve Swiontek , chair of the presidential search committee at NDSU, even though not being formally associated with the University, announced the finalists for the position and expressed “excitement” at the qualifications of the list of candidates. I strongly disagree with that sentiment, and wonder if the State Board of Higher Education is going to have to actually destroy the University before the people(as in “for the land and it’s people,” see below) realize what they have done.
I do not think that a single finalist so far named by the search committee is worthy of serious consideration for the post. No, I’m not going to advocate Interim President Hanson, who saved the University from virtual extinction by getting the University under way again after the Vice President for Business and Finance allowed the university to stagnate because he didn’t have the courage to do his job. Hanson is a good man, a hard worker, but i think he rather clearly is not qualified for the job. But neither are any of the other candidates, in my view.
In his recent Bison Pride address, Interim President noted that NDSU is the state’s land grant school, referring to the Land Grant, or Morrill, Act of 1852 which gave each state a grant of land to use for generating funds for a university for, according to Hanson, excellence in research and facilitating the work of the agricultural world. NDSU is one of these, as well as one each in most, if not all states. The exceptions are the former Confederate states that have two(formerly “separate but equal, don’t you know).
Dr., Hanson, while having spent some of his career at NDSU has spent most of his administrative life at a small liberal arts colleges, most recently at Waldorf College of Decorah Iowa, a 440 student 4 year libral arts college. Such institutions tout excellence in teaching, I’m sure justifiably so. However, NDSU’s faculty, as desparately underfunded as they are, are involved in nationally or internationally recognized research, for the most part, and their better undergraduates take graduate courses and are involve with the faculty in their research, opportunites not available at, for example, Waldorf.
NDSU is in serious financial difficulty. Hanson has pretty much made that clear. The next president is ging to have to deal with that reality. I submit that to do so, he’s going to have to understand what he’s chasing funding for, ande what it’s needed for. I thinkk he also needs to underestand the intricacies of administering such a university. Hanson may not be qualified to do this, but look at some of the other candidates:
D. C. Coston, vice president for agriculture and university extension at NDSU. I’m unsure of how much administration is involved in this position, but would point out that the Academic Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Dean of the Graduate School, several college deans, were all promoted from within NDSU. Another internal promotion will indicate to potential funding agencies the desperate situation at NDSU.
Thomas Keon, dean of business administration at the University of Central Florida. From dean at a regional, at least in name, university to president of a land grant school? I don’t think so.
Dean Bresciani, former Vice President for Student Affairs at Texas A & M. Texas A & M is a land grant school, but Vice President for Student Affairs is not a position actually involved in the administration of the university: no faculty report to him and he has no budget to administer to speak of.
Gene Hockfield Malandra, Malandra Consulting and former vice chancellor for strategic management, the University of Texas system. None of this suggests actual academic experience to me,
Stanley Battle, consultant for the Connecticut State University and former president of North Carolina State Agricultural and Technical University. North Carolina A & T is the historically African American land school in North Carolina. It is impossible to describe how underfunded
and therefore poor in other ways institutions like this are. This is not a comment about the faculty, students, administration or supporters of such institutions: only about their funding. Once again, appointment to NDSU president would be a huge leap.
Priscilla Nelson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology. From professor to president in one leap? You’ve got to be kidding me.
These are just some of the candidates, and some may not be candidates anymore. I have nothing for or against any of fhem personally. But they indicate how bad the situation is, and I am extremely disappointed that Swiontek is “excited” about this list. My feeling is that if this is the best we can do, we should close the search and try again next year with a new search committee.
There are a couple of other things about this search that concern me. One is that the profile of the NDSU president disseminated by this search committee there was a section on university athletics, claiming that athletics is an “integral part” of NDSU. Ii can’t seem to track down where in university policy this is established. Most, if not all, NDSU faculty I’ve talked to don’t feel that this is true. I wonder if it’s not a product of the search committee itself. Since most have no formal connection with NDSU, they have no business making NDSU policy.
Finally, remember when the Forum’s Man of the Year was considering another position? We didn’t find out about it until he had already been offered the position. According to those I’v spoken to experienced eith searches, qualified applicants sometimes don’t apply to NDSU since the Forum has a history of investigating the candidates on their own camp, and most don’t want it known they are looking elsewhere. So, if we do have another search, the Forum should stay out of it.