The presidential search
The secretive and controversial appointment of Bruce Harreld as president is not forgotten as the UI searches for a new campus leader.
Spring has sprung on the University of Iowa campus, and though it’s overcast and gloomy this week, the warmer weather definitely seems to be keeping spirits up. As I write this, the UI is losing to Oregon in the second round of March Madness (hopefully the second half goes better). But as exciting as Iowa sports news is (we got an NCAA wrestling title under our belt this weekend), I want to talk about the next UI president.
The search process for a new president is well underway, and candidates will begin coming to campus to hold in-person forums throughout April. The state Board of Regents plans to name Bruce Harreld’s successor on April 30.
Those newer to the Iowa City community may not know just how deeply unpopular Harreld was during the search process in 2015. A business executive with no experience as a university administrator, he was far from the top choice of UI faculty and students. In an informal survey administered by the American Association of University Professors at Iowa in 2015, Harreld received almost no support from respondents.
Secret meetings held between Harreld and regents members made people, understandably, doubt the transparency of the process. Soon after his appointment Faculty Senate took a vote of no confidence in the regents, making their disapproval obvious.
This search, as Lois Cox of the AAUP said in a DI guest op, is happening “in the shadow” of that previous search, and the pressure is on the Board of Regents to appease stakeholders with their pick. Since the uproar over the last search, the regents and Faculty Senate have formed a “best practices” document that’s guiding their selection, and the search committee will have a more active role in the process.
Faculty and students seem to not have forgotten their issues with the regents’ last appointment, and are pushing to make sure the next president has academic experience and a strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The UI has shuffled DEI executives over the past year (a topic worthy of its own newsletter), but the next president will take the helm with Liz Tovar as their head of diversity, barring any changes to the cabinet structure.
Candidates for the position have not yet been announced, so it’s hard to tell how well they will stack up against faculty interests. As candidates are brought to campus throughout April, faculty, staff, and students will be able to attend forums and ask questions to become more familiar with the candidates, and no doubt opinions will arise and news will be made.
Reading list
The DI’s opinions editor Hannah Pinski wrote a poignant and moving piece about the experience of being Asian American over the last year and for a long time before that. It’s insightful and deeply important, and worth the read if you have the time.