While congratulations are in order for Russell Keen, for all intents and purposes the newly tapped president-elect of Augusta University, the process by which he was chosen was more secretive than was either necessary or good for the school or the community.
In fact, you wouldn’t be far off track if you believed the Board of Regents imposed a selection process that was even more secretive than that of choosing a new pope. At least in that process, the College of Cardinals sends out smoke signals as they work through the list of candidates.
Georgia law used to mandate that the board select three finalists and then make public the names and résumés. And BOR policy still mandates that search committees SHALL send three to five unranked names for consideration.
Once the names are disclosed, the organization has to wait five days before making a final choice and that gives the chance for media and citizens to look into the backgrounds of the candidates.
However, some time back, the law changed ever so slightly to allow for the board to select “up to three finalists.”
The altered language created an important loophole. Because the Board of Regents can select “up to” three candidates, the search committee can simply name one finalist and avoid having to make public the names of at least two other finalists.
This is exactly how Augusta University got saddled with Ricardo Azziz, who did much to harm the institution during his relatively short tenure, earning the nickname of “Eddie Munster” for his tone-deafness and hideous renaming of the university.
The selection process is certainly not fair to the students and faculty of the university, who have no say at all as to who will lead their institution. But neither is it fair to Russell Keen.
Because the public cannot see how his résumé stacks up when compared to other applicants. No one will know for sure whether the man is indeed the right person for the job, not until he proves his mettle, anyway. That is not to cast aspersions on Dr. Keen. He is likely going to be an excellent leader. But how do we know he is the best leader for the institution? We haven’t even been shown HIS resume yet.
AU has been through a lot in the last decade. The people of AU deserved to have more information about the search–as would be true of any executive search at any system institution.
The General Assembly could easily remedy this by returning the original language to the law regarding the selection process, and the BOR could help by following their own policy that requires (SHALL) the submission of three to five names.
