Ellington

Members of the faculty senate grilled President Michael Young yesterday on the recent search for a new provost. Ana Mari Cauce, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, was announced as Young’s preferred candidate last month after a closed search process, which began last August.

“What was going on in the search process was not public disclosure,” said professor Susan Astley, chair of the faculty senate. Astley was also a part of the provost search committee and could not comment directly in support of or about the specifics of the process.

Cauce was out of town and could not be reached for comment.

Some senate members were unhappy with the search because they were told the process was going to be open. Cauce was the only finalist publicly disclosed to the university community.

She has not been formally appointed, and President Young has offered several public meetings for community members to ask her questions.

“My preference was for an open search, but the committee came back to me, indicating that a number of people felt uncomfortable [with the open search],” Young said.

Astley told senate members that four of the five finalists picked by the provost search committee would have dropped out had their names been made public.

One faculty member asked the question to the senate floor, “If open searches reduced the candidate pool, how does this influence […] identifying the most qualified candidate?”

Another faculty member said in response, “I don’t understand what a tenured professor or a dean, who is considering stepping forward to become provost, has to lose.”

“I just don’t see at what point it has to shift towards secrecy and a closed system,” another faculty member said.

The difference between representative and representation was called into question by one faculty member, who said “The committee was representative, but it was not democratically legitimated. It was representative but not representative of the faculty.”

President Young defended the process and said he made the right decision to keep the search process closed.

“The question I was faced with was either to preserve the robustness of the pool [of candidates] or of the open process,” he said. “I made the best judgment I could in terms of the robustness of the pool.”

Young said that he personally favors open searches. He said that besides this provost search, all of the searches he has conducted in his career have been open.

Reach reporter Katherine McKeon at news@dailyuw.com.