As University of Michigan President Lee Bollinger’s departure to become Columbia University’s president looms, the Board of Regents is beginning the process to find his successor.
We hope the regents learned their lesson from the presidential search that produced Bollinger, as well as the more controversial episode here that brought President M. Peter McPherson to East Lansing.
But, unfortunately, they seem to be off to the wrong start. On Thursday, the Board of Regents met in a closed meeting with many of the university’s deans to discuss the search. It then voted to name former business school Dean B. Joseph White as interim president on Friday in a public meeting.
Such a token vote - with debate kept behind closed doors - is no different than voting in private to begin with, and skirts the intended purpose of laws and principles to keep our government operating within sight.
Because of a loophole created by a 1999 Michigan Supreme Court ruling, there’s little we can do about such actions. The court ruled the three constitutionally created universities - MSU, U-M and Wayne State University - do not have to abide by the Open Meetings Act, and therefore can conduct much of their business, including presidential searches, behind closed doors.
The case came about after the MSU Board of Trustees hired McPherson, who was not one of the five finalists on a public list of candidates. The Detroit News and the Lansing State Journal sued.
In 1988 and again in 1996, U-M was forced by a court ruling to open its presidential selection process to the public. But the most recent case changed that and gave university governing boards the excuse they needed to operate in private.
But that doesn’t mean they should.
Our government is supposed to be “of the people, by the people, and for the people” - a principle that seems too easily cast aside by our state universities. Hiding information from taxpayers by conducting business in private is a mistake.
Proponents of a closed search point out that making all candidates public from the outset could prevent the best from applying for fear that they may be blacklisted by their own communities because of the expressed desire to leave.
But it is vital for public universities to keep their business in the open - especially once a search is narrowed. It’s only fair the public is allowed to know what decisions are being made with their tax dollars.
When a new president comes to Ann Arbor, we hope he or she will be chosen with the utmost care by the Board of Regents, and with guidance from the rest of the population.
And another note to remember, McPherson has expressed a desire to stay until 2005, which could mean we’ll have our own presidential search in a few years. Our Board of Trustees would do well to maintain a policy of full disclosure when selecting MSU’s new president - it’s part of being involved in government.
University communities - as well as the state - have a right to know who is being chosen to lead state-supported colleges and universities. There is no reason to keep that information from the people.
