Searches for a university president often go on for quite a long time. This one is lasting even longer.
The presidency at Boise State University was held for six years, until July, by Marlene Tromp (now at the University of Vermont). When she announced her departure, the whole replacement superstructure – committees, consultants and all the rest, running at substantial taxpayer cost – cranked up with the usual end goal of installing a new president at the end of the next academic year, in mid-2026.
That still may be possible, but it’s becoming more unlikely.
The procedure started in the usual way by forming review panels and hiring consultants who promote the opening and do an initial review of the application. The norm (not just in Idaho but in many places) is that after a series of local interviews, five candidates are announced, and they are brought to the institution for meetings, introductions and a public viewing.
That public review of the five finalists is actually built into Idaho state law. The procedure has worked smoothly in the past. Two years ago a new president of Idaho State University was chosen through the same process, when 80 unnamed candidates were winnowed down to five, whose names were released to the public. Current President Robert Wagner was the result.
If some elements of the process seem a little off – as some long have to me – this standard procedure still appeared to be on track until August, when the preliminary interviews were conducted.
Then on October 2, according to the Idaho Ed News (which did a careful review of available documentation about the search): “without five qualified candidates willing to go public, the search committee made a startling admission of defeat. The committee recommended putting the process on hold, allowing the State Board to review “both the approach and scope of the search.” A process that started on a fast track had hit a sudden slowdown.
Meaning the process seems to be stuck in neutral, with no prospective president in view and no clear explanation of what caused the derailment.
At a state Board of Education meeting after the preliminary interviews, two members said applicants saw the presidency as attractive (and well it should be, from a professional and compensation point of view), and a number of contenders seemed appropriately qualified.
But, the News said, “They also said candidates bristled at the one public aspect of the search – a law requiring the State Board to publicly announce five finalists, or release the entire list of applicants. Some presidents at other institutions would rather withdraw their application than go public …”
Such reluctance could be understandable (if you work at any job it’s not hard to understand), but this part of the process is not new, could not have been unexpected, and it is not limited to Idaho or to recent times.
So why the difficulty now?
How many candidates applied (compared, say, to the 80 for ISU in 2023)? How many of them were actually interviewed? At what point in the process did they drop out? Apart from the public element, what other concerns were expressed?
The whole thing starts to open more questions the more you think about it.
One of my questions is this: How many retracted their interest as they started to investigate, or paused to consider, the political and cultural environment they might be getting into upon moving to Idaho, and how that might relate to their career standing? What were the applicants told about the political and other conditions they would be entering? Tromp was not exactly a favorite of the state’s political leadership (no reflection on her personally), and a look at the recent history of the Idaho Legislature and public education might have led to causes for concern by some applicants.
Maybe that had nothing to do with it. But it seems plausible.
Of course, the state board still could handle this the easy way: Promote from within, from the upper (and substantially-sized) administrative ranks at Boise State. Very likely at least one competent contender, and probably more than one, could be found there.
And at the least, they’d know from the outset what they’d be getting themselves into.
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