Statement on Ohio University’s Current Presidential Search
The Ohio University chapter of the American Association of University Professors (OU-AAUP) welcomes the opportunity for a new president to be selected to replace interim President Hugh Sherman. We wish to emphasize the importance of transparency, openness, and shared governance to this process. The next president of Ohio University must represent the views of everyone in the university, and will need to ensure the long-term and sustained prosperity of the institution and its faculty; the commitment to the core mission of teaching and research; the advancement of the communities of Southeast Ohio; and the expansion of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. The next president will achieve these goals only to the degree that faculty and staff possess true and effective capacities to help shape decisions, including budgetary ones, that bear directly on the university’s core mission. Such capacities constitute real shared governance. Inclusion of faculty and staff as effective, meaningful participants in shared governance must begin now, with this search process.
OU-AAUP has welcomed the numerous forums that have been held with faculty, staff, students, and other stakeholders in the search process. However, the ultimate power to select candidates still lies with Ohio University’s Board of Trustees, and the chapter is concerned that the final selection process will occur behind closed doors. Recent searches by other institutions such as Kent State and Bowling Green lacked sufficient transparency. Greater transparency and openness will ensure a healthier, holistic process through which final candidates receive proper evaluation.
The use of a search firm raises significant questions, however, about whether OU can follow a truly open process. A search firm will likely sift and present raw data gathered from information sessions in ways that fail to accurately express the concerns of faculty. The priorities of the search firm–and the stable of candidates they make available to OU–might also not reflect a true understanding of and commitment to Ohio University’s institutional history, culture, and core mission in teaching, research, and community advancement. In line with these concerns, OU-AAUP urges the search firm not simply to invite any and all individuals considering a new position to apply, but actively to recruit high quality candidates who understand and value Ohio University’s unique identity and role as an R1 institution committed to excellence in higher education in Southeast Ohio.
Additionally, OU-AAUP would like to emphasize some key issues that successful candidates should embody or address. These include the following:
fostering an environment in which all faculty feel welcomed and valued, especially faculty of color
rebuilding faculty trust and morale in the wake of widespread, and unnecessary, elimination of faculty positions (tenured and non-tenured)
planning for the long-term future of Ohio University, with a special focus on ensuring sustainable enrollments in the years to come and, correspondingly, enhancing the quality of the academic experience commensurate with OU’s status as an R1 institution
strengthening the college accessibility mission of regional campuses by reversing recent enrollment decline through strategies such as automatic admission of students in the serving regions if they fit admissions criteria
An open, transparent, and meaningful process inclusive of all stakeholders will ensure that Ohio University’s next president will have the credibility and capacity to lead the entire university community in the effort to rebuild this proud and indispensable institution serving the southeast region and the entire state of Ohio.
In addition to the above statement, we invite all faculty and stakeholders to examine AAUP’s resources on presidential searches: https://www.aaup.org/resources-presidential-searches