Who should be president?
CARSON JEREMA STAFF
Since his appointment in 2003 as president of the University of Winnipeg, former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy has brought the U of W to a greater public profile than it has arguably ever had. Whether it is hosting prestigious UN conferences, securing government funding, or articulating an inspiring vision for Winnipeg’s downtown university, Axworthy has created quite a stir.
Despite all this, even if he was available there is a good chance that Axworthy would not even be considered for the role of president at the U of M.
Last Thursday, the presidential search committee, tasked with replacing Emöke Szathmáry when she leaves next year, held a town hall to discuss the type of candidate the committee should be seeking. The discussion seemed to conclude that the new president be one with similar credentials as Szathmáry who before coming to the U of M was a vice-president at McMaster, dean of social sciences at the University of Western Ontario, and head of the anthropology department at McMaster. A textbook administrator with battle scars to prove it.
Consensus seemed to conclude that the new president should of course be adept at securing funding and promoting the university across Canada and abroad. But, the most important quality identified was someone that could effectively focus on internal governance and set the tone for reviving our disengaged campus. Lofty goals.
Dissenting opinions suggesting that someone with private-sector experience would be more equipped to make tough decisions in the face of unforgiving faculty and students were posed. Also floated was the possibility of seeking someone from one of the large research funding institutions or from government. These appeared to be dismissed.
Someone like Axworthy, despite his extensive knowledge of the government system and knack for using the media effectively would not qualify. While Axworthy does have a PhD, his teaching experience is limited and his battle scars aren’t the result of years of tortuous senate meetings.
Internally the president’s principal job is to liaise with the university’s various constituents: students’ unions, deans, heads of departments, faculty associations and other administrators. Universities are complex places, the argument goes, with many unwritten as well as written procedural intricacies. It is imperative, again the argument goes, that the new president has proven survival skills. The halls of academe could be sullied if someone without a clear understanding of university governance was selected.
Call me facetious but I think this reasoning has as much to do with experience as it does with comfort. Universities are among the most parochial and myopic of institutions and Ivory Tower politics are among the most vicious and small. Complete with peculiar pecking orders and peer systems, decision-making is often more bureaucratic than in government. Axworthy was quoted as saying as much in a recent issue of University Affairs.
Yes, an “outsider” might bring an unfamiliar management style to the table. But, is someone who is an academic but has built a career successfully outside of the university, with a proven management record and has that “special touch” required of all leaders, really unqualified? The ability to survive in other large and/or public institutions should be just as valuable. At least as valuable as being a part of a university for several decades.
Szathmáry, for her part, has dealt with a myriad of controversies during her tenure, such as faculty strikes, concerns over academic freedom, the renaming of the faculty of the environment after oil baron Clayton Riddell and the almost-tripling of international student differential fees. Her experience as an administrator certainly helped her in dealing with these issues, but that does not mean that if her experience was with the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) she would not have been equally equipped. It is a question of character as much as it is one of having the "right" experience.
Moreover, more constituents outside of the university are increasingly placing scrutinizing and often critical eyes on our largely publicly funded institutions of higher learning.
Maclean’s magazine has been ranking universities for years and has recently launched a website to deal exclusively with post-secondary issues. A lengthy article recently appeared in the Walrus addressing post-secondary education. And when the Canadian Federation of Students organized their Feb. 7 Day of Action, the event received extensive coverage and sparked a national debate regarding the merits of reducing tuition. In other words, a robust discussion on the importance of higher education in Canada is in the offing, and different perspectives could enrich the campus.
None of this is to detract from the importance of administration experience, only to signify that universities, while always changing, are being particularly scrutinized, and by limiting the search only to people comfortable in the strange culture of academia the U of M could lose out. Concerns that universities are transforming into slick private business models are valid and the pressure on administrators is great. Three Canadian presidents quit late last year and 12 American ones have left as well, including the infamous Lawrence Summers of Harvard. All the more reason to ensure that the right choice is made and that candidates from differing backgrounds are considered.
The right person for the job is the right person for the job whether they in fact have university administration experience or not.
