FULLERTON : Truce Reached on CSF President Search

The Cal State Fullerton Academic Senate on Tuesday dropped its resolution to pull members from a committee searching for a successor to retiring President Jewel Plummer Cobb, but it vowed to continue pressing for a greater role in the screening of candidates.

The Academic Senate’s unanimous vote means Carol Barnes, Harris Shultz and Academic Senate President Jack Bedell will be present when the search committee meets Thursday to start sifting through about 80 applications for the job.

Earlier this month, the Academic Senate passed a resolution to recall its three committee members if Cal State University Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds failed to give a “positive response” to its demands, which included faculty participation in candidate background checks.

On Thursday, Reynolds and Cal State University Trustee William D. Campbell offered a compromise that will give faculty members complete access to information gathered in background checks. The offer satisfied the Academic Senate.

“I do not believe that they have resolved our central question,” said Prof. Leland J. Bellot. “But I do believe that they are willing to listen. . . . To withdraw our threat at this point, we would have cut off our dialogue.”

But faculty members also voted Tuesday to renew their to push for the right to help conduct the checks, as well as a request that an additional committee meeting be held after the three finalists have visited the campus.

Such a meeting would allow faculty to have input just before the five trustee members make their recommendation to the CSU Board of Trustees, which has the final say in the selection. Only the trustee members of the search committee are allowed a vote on the recommendation.

Campbell, chairman of the search committee, so far has refused the request, saying that faculty members already are allowed to submit written comments on the finalists to the trustees.