presidential search
Charge to the Presidential Search Committee
June 19, 2007
| TO: | Members, Presidential Search Committee |
| FROM: | James B. Stewart, Jr. Chair, DePauw University Board of Trustees |
| RE: | Charge to the Presidential Search Committee |
On behalf of the DePauw University Board of Trustees, I would like to express our appreciation to each of you for your willingness to serve as a member of the Presidential Search Committee. We are grateful for your commitment to DePauw and your enthusiasm in accepting the challenge of assisting the Board in recruiting a successor to President Robert G. Bottoms.
Your committee is charged with the responsibility for identifying the most outstanding and qualified candidates for the presidency of DePauw, screening the candidate pool, and providing the Board with a recommended candidate in the spring of 2008. This timetable will enable the Board to select the new president before the end of the 2007-08 academic year. While this period should be sufficient for the successful completion of this search, your work should continue until you have identified the right candidate for the position. We are very fortunate that President Bottoms has agreed to continue with his duties as President until the end of the 2007-08 academic year, which should help to ensure a smooth and seamless transition.
The Presidential Search Committee represents all of the major constituencies of the University and reflects the traditions and diversity that make DePauw so distinctive. As you know, I asked Sarah Wallace to serve as chair of the search committee. With her assistance, I chose eight trustees to serve on the committee, including two former board chairs and the chair-elect. (As current chair I will also serve on the committee.) I have asked four faculty members to be members of the committee. Members of the Faculty Governance Steering Committee submitted their names from 49 candidates nominated by the faculty. I have also selected two students and an administrator.
I believe it is a measure of DePauw’s current strength and vibrancy that I could have filled the committee many times over with outstanding members of the DePauw community.
We, the trustees, clearly understand our responsibilities and know that there will be no greater contribution we will make to the future of DePauw during our term of office than the selection and support of its next leader.
We fully support and seek the engagement of the University community and the search committee in this process, but we are mindful of the fact that the final statutory responsibility and authority in selecting the president and setting the terms of his or her appointment rests with the Board of Trustees.
There are no pre-commitments and no favored candidates in this presidential search. We expect you to seek applicants widely through an active national search. We expect you affirmatively to seek women and minorities as candidates. Your committee should actively identify, recruit and assess the candidates in preparation for your recommendation to the Board of Trustees.
Assisting the committee is Nancy G. Mistretta of Russell Reynolds Associates in New York. Nancy is a consultant in the not-for-profit sector and a former managing director of J.P. Morgan. She will be visiting Greencastle and immersing herself in the DePauw culture as she begins her work. Russell Reynolds is one of the leading global search firms and has conducted numerous searches for some of the most prominent colleges and universities in the country.
Maintaining confidentiality is an absolute requirement for membership on this search committee. In order to attract and retain the best qualified candidates in this search, there can be no outside discussion of potential candidates or of the internal workings of the search process. All information and deliberations of the Presidential Search Committee pertaining to candidates shall be kept in strict confidence by members of the search committee.
There will be one spokesperson for the search committee and for the Board of Trustees regarding the Presidential search – Sarah Wallace, chair of the search committee.
The search process will begin in a highly inclusive manner, seeking wide input from all campuses and constituencies about DePauw’s compelling strengths, opportunities and challenges and how these factors should influence the selection of the next president. This broad-based input, as well as the perspectives of the board, will be incorporated into a position description that will provide background information about DePauw University and identify the qualifications we will be seeking in our next president. The document will serve as the guiding document for the entire search process.
DePauw University comes into this search from a position of strength, due in large part to President Bottoms’ dynamic and capable leadership during the past twenty-one years. I see this as a great opportunity for the DePauw community to join together and build on the momentum already underway. For the future we will need another leader possessed of great energy and vision. Your task is to find that person. I am confident that you will accomplish your mission.
