FULLERTON : CSUF Faculty’s Role in Selection Debated

Cal State University Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds told the Cal State Fullerton faculty on Monday that it is unlikely they will be allowed a greater role in the selection of a new president for the campus.

In a March 8 resolution, the 45-member Academic Senate threatened to recall their three representatives from a search committee if Reynolds failed to give a “positive response” to their request that faculty be allowed to participate in background checks of candidates. The senate will decide Thursday whether to withdraw from the committee.

Jewel Plummer Cobb, 66, is retiring July 31 after eight years as president of the 25,000-student campus. The 12-member search committee is to recommend a candidate to the CSU Board of Trustees before its May meeting, and the board will have final say in the selection.

In a response to the senate, Reynolds expressed her “fervent hope” that committee members Carol Barnes, John W. Bedell and Harris Shultz would remain on the committee but said that it was unlikely they would be allowed to engage in background checks.

“The policy on presidential searches cannot be modified without the explicit approval of the entire Board of Trustees,” she wrote in a letter received Monday morning. “Because the existing process has worked well, the board is not likely to act in changing it.”

She also wrote that the current process is necessary because the checks “require special care and confidentiality so as not to place at risk the candidate’s current position.”

The committee is scheduled to meet March 29, when it will start to winnow about 80 applications down to 10 or 12. After that, Caesar Naples, CSU’s vice chancellor for faculty and staff affairs, will conduct the background checks, which include visiting the campuses and interviewing the candidates and their colleagues.

Faculty senate members say that the checks are among the most critical parts of the search and that their participation would add a different perspective.

Bedell, who is the president of the Academic Senate, said it would be up to the senate members to vote on the response.

“The chancellor indicated strongly that she wants us there,” Bedell said. “That to me is positive. On the other hand, she has indicated that they are unwilling to change the policy. We don’t want a change in policy. We have a different interpretation of the policy. . . . We just want to broaden the base of information.”

But Trustee William D. Campbell, the chairman of the search committee, said that allowing faculty members in on the checks would give rise to an “untested, unstructured, unbalanced approach.”

“Privacy must be assured,” he said. Candidates “are not going to show up if their cover is blown.”

The search committee is made up of three faculty members, a student, an alumnus, a campus advisory board member, four trustees, Reynolds and Cal State Fresno President Harold H. Haak.

Only the trustee members and Reynolds vote on the recommendation to the board.

Meanwhile, Jim Simon, president of Associated Students and the student member of the committee, said they have no plans to follow any faculty action, even though the student government passed a resolution in November calling for an additional student representative and participation in background checks.

“I don’t think students would be represented at all if we started pulling people off,” he said. “It would be a detriment to this campus.”