U Wisc-Parkside President says Felner Search Flawed

This from Trading Markets.com:

Parkside chancellor search was flawed, Reilly says

The people involved in the failed search for a chancellor at UW-Parkside could have done a better job of sharing information about the top candidate, University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly said Friday.

Reilly commissioned a review of the search process used to choose chancellors at all System schools after Robert Felner, who was hired as chancellor of UW-Parkside last spring, resigned amid a federal criminal investigation in Kentucky.

Suggested changes in the report, released Friday, included visiting the home campus of all lead candidates and clearly delineating the roles and responsibilities of the search firm.

It also included simple suggestions like running Google searches on candidates to find articles that could reveal controversies.

...Reilly said "information flow" was lacking in the Parkside search. For instance, some search committee members who chose Felner knew of a no-confidence vote by faculty at the University of Louisville but failed to pass on that information on to others....

UW-Parkside asked for Felner Resignation

UW System reviews UW-Parkside Chancellor search

In the wake of the Felner investigation the folks at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside are rethinking their search processes. Instead of making excuses they wasted little time identifying changes needed in the next search.

This from a UW-Parkside press release:

University of Wisconsin System President Kevin P. Reilly today announced that a detailed review of procedures used to recruit and screen candidates for the UW-Parkside Chancellor post is under way. Findings from that review will be used to improve future searches, including those at UW-Green Bay and UW-River Falls.

Over the past four years, the UW System has hired nine new Chancellors, employing a transparent, inclusive process that begins with a local search and screen committee comprised of faculty, staff, students and community members. The institutional committee recommends a slate of finalists, each of whom visits the campus and meets with various stakeholder groups. Based on information gathered through campus visits, interviews, public comments, professional references, and background checks, the UW System president and a select committee of Regents recommend a preferred candidate. Finally, the new Chancellor is appointed by the full Board of Regents.

UW System’s search method is an exceptionally open one, compared to most public- and private-sector organizations, including other institutions of higher education in the United States. It has resulted in the appointments of successful Chancellors who have led their institutions to record enrollment levels, higher national rankings,
successful fundraising campaigns, new research prominence, and other achievements. However, the failed search at UW-Parkside may provide insights about ways to improve future processes.

Following a competitive national search, Robert Felner was recommended as one of four finalists for the UW-Parkside post on April 30. His name, photo, biography and curriculum vitae were released and posted on a public Internet site. Members of the public were invited to hear his campus presentation and submit comments, as they were for three other finalists. Five weeks later, on June 5, the UW System Board of Regents approved Felner’s appointment. During this time, no information or public comments surfaced that warned of a current or pending investigation involving Felner.

On Sunday, June 22, Felner informed UW System leaders of an investigation at the University of Louisville that involved the College of Education and Human Development, where he served as Dean. On Monday, June 23, UW System officials learned that federal agents had visited UW-Parkside on Friday, June 20 to examine papers belonging to Felner. Within two days of the first notification, UW System requested and obtained Felner’s resignation in advance of his first day of employment in Wisconsin.

Upon learning of the Louisville investigation, the UW System immediately began reviewing available information about Felner during the UW-Parkside search.

Although none of the information pointed to any kind of improper activity, the UW System has identified a few areas where problems may have occurred. A review of these areas may help improve future searches:

• References – In the UW-Parkside search, much information obtained about Felner through professional references painted a very positive picture of his performance at both the University of Louisville and the University of Rhode Island. However, the number and type of references interviewed may have been insufficient, affecting the quality and breadth of information obtained. Information about a 2006 vote of no confidence by Louisville faculty was not shared with everyone involved in the Parkside hiring process.
• Roles and Relationships – Based on current information about the UW-Parkside search process, UW System will work to clarify roles, responsibilities, relationships and expectations for everyone involved in the search process. This will include clear guidelines and checklists for individuals, committee chairs, external search onsultants, UW System Administration staff and others. These written guidelines will provide clear procedures and mechanisms for gathering, verifying, analyzing and sharing all available information about candidates in a manner that ensures an unfettered, unbiased examination of each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Timelines – The timeline for the UW-Parkside search allowed roughly three months to recruit a pool of qualified candidates, evaluate applications, conduct preliminary interviews, check references, name finalists, schedule public presentations, interview finalists and appoint the new Chancellor. Compared to most Chancellor searches, this was a more compressed timeline – about two weeks shorter than the successful search for a new UW-Madison Chancellor. UW System officials will examine the impact of this shorter timeline on the search committee’s ability to fulfill its charge.

Reilly will ask a qualified independent consultant to explore these issues and related topics, with a goal of providing specific recommendations by mid-August. This will ensure that lessons learned can be incorporated into upcoming Chancellor searches at UW-Green Bay and UW-River Falls, as well as a new search at UW-Parkside.

Search committees have been appointed at UW-Green Bay and UW-River Falls, with the process of recruiting and screening candidates scheduled to begin in the Fall when students and faculty return to campus. This will allow sufficient time to complete the review of the search process and incorporate improvements into these institutional searches.

UW System will name an interim Chancellor for UW-Parkside before August 1, when Chancellor Jack Keating is scheduled to step down from his post after more than 10 years of service. Once that interim leadership is in place, and findings from this review committee are submitted, Reilly will work with campus leaders to identify a new campus search and screen committee to help lead a national search for a new Chancellor.

Here's a recap from Jennifer Oladipo in LEO. And more about the review of the search process in the Kenosha News and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Thanks to Jake at Page One.

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...

Felner Probe Widens, UW-Parkside Search Process Questioned

Criminal investigation could involve

the purchase of illegal goods

The Felner investigation continues with a few new tid bits.

Yesterday, The Kenosha News reported,

The criminal investigation of Felner reportedly involves allegations of fraud and the mishandling of large sums of grant money. The Kenosha News has learned that it might also include the purchase of illegal goods.

...[U of L] spokesman John Drees...said the criminal investigation was initiated from someone at the university, and the campus police and staff were cooperating with authorities. He said several people had been interviewed by investigators.

...Felner was packing up his office Friday when federal agents swarmed in to seize computers and paperwork. Observers say investigators wouldn't let Felner out of their sight and even followed him to the men's room before escorting him from the building.

Jacob Payne, an editor for Page One Kentucky, a political news blog, said he spoke to several sources at the University of Louisville who said Felner argued with officials because he didn't want to return his computers to the school last week.

Yesterday, The Chronicle of Higher Education raised concerns over the search firm's (stop me if you've heard this before) lack of due diligence in selecting Felner.

...one prominent search consultant said that Mr. Felner was considered a problem candidate and that a background check should have revealed several red flags in his past. Mr. Felner has been involved in at least one public flap involving research grants. In 2003 he resigned as dean of the University of Rhode Island's School of Education, blaming a state law for his departure. According to an account in The Providence Journal, Mr. Felner said he lost $15-million in research grants because of a cap on university staffing that prevented him from hiring enough employees to conduct the research.

EFL Associates, an executive-search firm with four regional offices, charged the system a $70,000 fee and expenses for the Parkside chancellor search. The firm's higher-education practice is "well entrenched" and was established 15 years ago, according to its president, Jason M. Meschke.

But while EFL employs three former college chiefs as consultants, it lists a relatively small number of higher-education searches on its Web site, including just two current and previous presidential searches, and is not among a "roundtable" of 30 respected executive-search firms identified by the American Council on Education.

In the case of a failed search, consultants typically conduct a second search without charging a fee. Mr. Meschke said his firm was contractually required to do so for the Parkside campus. "We are standing by the contract," he said.

The Kenoshia News reported (See sidebar),

Chris Evans, chairwoman of the UW-Parkside search committee and professor and chairwoman of the school’s Department of Geosciences, said Felner gave no indication that an investigation of this type could be coming...

But the search committee was aware of a no-confidence vote against Felner...

Evans said the committee became aware of that vote once the four finalists were announced. But Evans said that vote did not discourage support for Felner.

“We knew that there had been conflict, and it was only what you would expect from someone who was a determined change agent,” Evans said. “He never presented himself as uniformly popular. His references said that the faculty that objected to him were vocal, but they were definitely a minority. That didn’t cause us any alarm at all...

Apparently, Dr Evans doesn't understand the concept of a majority. The no-confidence vote was 27-24-2. She might want to study up on "confirmation bias" as well.

Now the Wisconsin system is re-examining the way it recruits, screens, and hires chancellors.

The system faced embarrassing headlines this year when a different search firm mistakenly released the name of a candidate for the chancellor position at its flagship Madison campus, even though the candidate had asked that his name be kept confidential.

This from the C-J:

Inquiry widens on dean's spending
Second school looks into use of grants

A federal investigation into allegations of mishandled funds at the University of Louisville has led another university to review grant expenditures made by the dean at the center of the investigation.

A spokeswoman at the University of Rhode Island, where Robert Felner worked from 1996 to 2003, confirmed yesterday the school is reviewing his grant expenditures while he was employed there.Felner was the director of URI's School of Education until he left in 2003 to become UofL's education dean, although he continued to serve on URI's National Center on Public Education and Social Policy until 2006.

Felner: Federal investigation leads to resignation

More from KenoshaNews.com, and Photo (Robert Felner answers questions during a May 5 visit to Kenosha.)

...David Giroux, a UW System spokesman, who earlier Monday said talks of resignation were premature, told the Kenosha News Tuesday evening that Felner offered his resignation Sunday when he informed the university about the investigation. He declined to say if UW President Kevin Reilly asked for the resignation first, but indicated that any investigation would hinder Felner's Parkside position.

Giroux said Reilly wanted to look into the matter for a couple of days before formally accepting the resignation."I'll just say he offered the resignation and the resignation was accepted," Giroux said.

"We came to believe it was in the best interest of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside to move into a different direction, and we are doing that now. We have a campus that has ambitions for the future and is focused on strong leadership. Anyone in Dr. Felner's position would be hard pressed to give that focus."

According to a report on Page One Kentucky, an online news blog, Felner was packing up his office in Louisville Friday when federal investigators swarmed in to cart away computers and paperwork from his office and other areas of the College of Education. The blog said federal agents escorted Felner to the bathroom and out of the building...

Thanks Jake. You da Man on this one.