UW System to review botched chancellor search

This from H-L:

MADISON, Wis. --Insufficient reference checks and a compressed timeline may have hampered the process used to search for a new University of Wisconsin-Parkside chancellor, officials said Tuesday.

University of Louisville Dean Robert Felner was supposed to start leading UW-Parkside in Kenosha on Tuesday. He resigned the job last month after his lawyer disclosed he is at the center of a federal investigation into whether $500,000 in grant money was mishandled.

UW System President Kevin Reilly said Tuesday he would hire an independent consultant to study the failed search and make recommendations for improvements by mid-August.

He said the lessons learned will be used during pending searches for chancellors at UW-Green Bay and UW-River Falls, along with a second search for a UW-Parkside chief.

The consultant will review whether reference checks on Felner were insufficient, whether the three-month timeline for the search was too quick and whether the guidelines for vetting candidates are unclear, Reilly said.

The number and type of references interviewed by a campus search committee and an outside search firm may have led to an overly positive picture of Felner's performance at Louisville and the University of Rhode Island, he said...