Munitz Leaving Tough Shoes to Fill

For years, California State University Chancellor Barry Munitz lamented the leadership vacuum in higher education.

As one after another of the University of California’s nine chancellors announced plans to leave, Munitz was one of the loudest voices of alarm. And while he was chairman of the Washington-based American Council on Education, the nation’s most prominent higher education advocacy group, he frequently lectured on the dearth of good candidates for top academic jobs.

“We’re having trouble finding presidents for universities around this country,” he told a group of educators a few months ago. “I promise you, there is not a pool of seasoned, experienced academic leaders to run those institutions.”

Now, with last week’s news that Munitz too will soon leave higher education, his words ring in the ears of those who must find his replacement. As trustees of the 337,000-student system hurried to arrange a special Aug. 4 meeting to launch the search for Munitz’s successor, some worried that they face an uphill battle.

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“Barry Munitz was CSU,” said Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, who is a Cal State trustee by virtue of his position. With Munitz’s second in command, Executive Vice Chancellor Molly Broad, having recently left to become president of the University of North Carolina, Davis said, “there is a huge hole at CSU.”

Munitz announced Thursday that he will become the president and chief executive of the $4.2-billion J. Paul Getty Trust in January. He will remain at Cal State through the end of this year.

Some key Cal State trustees said they were optimistic about their ability to lure a good candidate, in part because Munitz has boosted their system’s image.

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“Barry has been a master at empowering individuals in the university to make us realize how strong we are,” said Martha Fallgatter, chairwoman of the Cal State board. “So we are positioned marvelously. This is the best place anyone could want to be.”

Bill Hauck, the board’s vice chairman, said the trustees plan to move quickly and to pursue candidates aggressively, not just to sit back and wait for people to apply.

“Barry has put us in a position where clearly other systems are looking at our people. I don’t think you can pay anyone a higher compliment,” he said. “He has raised the quality and visibility of the system.”

Nevertheless, the 22-campus operation begins its quest for a new head at a difficult time. At least nine colleges and universities across the nation are currently searching for leaders, including the City University of New York, which has a mission similar to Cal State’s and will therefore be looking for the same type of person.

In an odd coincidence, the New York job--which had been held by W. Ann Reynolds, Munitz’s predecessor at Cal State--opened up the same day Munitz announced his departure. Reynolds is going to head the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Further complicating Cal State’s search will be the fact that many good candidates have recently been snapped up by other institutions. In the past few months alone, more than a dozen colleges and universities have filled their top spots, from UCLA and UC Berkeley to the universities of Georgia, Houston, Maine, Michigan, Tennessee, Tulsa and Vermont.

Nonetheless, just days after Munitz’s announcement, Cal State trustees were already preparing a short list of candidates.

Among the likely contenders are the men and women who have just been passed over for the UCLA and UC Berkeley jobs: UC Riverside Chancellor Ray Orbach, UC Berkeley Provost Carol Christ, University of Pennsylvania Provost Stanley Chodoroff and UCLA’s executive vice chancellor, Charles F. Kennel.

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But trustees have said they want to search the nation for the best candidate and, according to sources, they are thinking seriously about targeting the heads of other major public multi-campus systems--particularly those in states where political pressures may make university presidents ripe for the picking.

University of Virginia President John Casteen, for example, was the commencement speaker at the first graduation at CSU’s Monterey Bay campus. He is known to have a complex relationship with the current governor of Virginia that might make him open to an approach from Cal State.

Charles B. Reed, chancellor of the Florida State University system, is a nontraditional candidate of the type that has attracted Cal State before. Reed has a political background: He was chief of staff for Florida Gov. Bob Graham in the mid-1980s.

And it is no secret that the divisive politics of the State University of New York system could make their strongest presidents targets.

Cal State trustees acknowledge that they plan to rely on Munitz--who is so well-connected in higher education circles that he has often served as a de facto headhunter for other institutions--to help them get their search up and running. But Munitz said he will not try to anoint his own successor.

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In an interview after he announced his departure, Munitz repeatedly stressed how difficult it had been for him to decide to leave Cal State, saying he ultimately concluded that the Getty job was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He would never have left Cal State to go to another university, he said, “because there isn’t any that’s better than this one.”

Munitz said that while his departure presents the university with a challenge, he is confident the system can net a strong leader with a strategically executed search, meaning one that is quick, confidential--and offers a competitive salary. Munitz, who earns $197,232, noted that when his second in command left Cal State to go run the University of North Carolina, many people in higher education took note.

“A number of people, when Molly left, said: ‘If this is the kind of position you go to [from CSU], count me in.’ These were people who wouldn’t have been interested five years before,” Munitz said. “My hope is that [enthusiasm] is extrapolated up one level,” to the chancellor’s job.

Asked if he would consider becoming a Cal State trustee--just as his predecessor at the Getty Trust, Harold Williams, once served as a UC regent--Munitz said no.

“I am not going to look over my successor’s shoulder. But I’ll be helpful. Maybe someday they’ll get some money,” he said half-jokingly, meaning from the Getty Trust. “After all, the Hewlett Foundation [which is now run by former UC President David Gardner] gives a lot of money to education.”