Eric Zuniga, Campus Carrier news editor
Anna Gorman, Campus Carrier staff writer
The search for Berry’s next president is underway, with the search committee now reviewing applications and planning to recommend final candidates by December.
The search process began with the formation of a search committee by the Board of Trustees, after college President Steve Briggs announced his retirement in April. The committee consists of nine trustees, as well as faculty, staff and student representatives.
According to John Coleman (04c), the chair of the search committee, the group is currently in the early stages of reviewing applicants.
“The board is now reviewing some of the applications that have come in, in the service of winnowing that field down to a manageable number that will go deeper into the interview process,” Coleman said. “We received a large number of applications and still are receiving some applications. The Berry job is a really attractive one.”
The search committee selected CarterBaldwin, a national executive search firm, to assist in the identification of candidates. The firm, which previously helped to hire Berry’s new Vice President for Advancement.
“They had worked with Berry recently, and the feedback from that process was very positive,” Coleman said. “We thought it was a good decision, since they placed a lot of college presidents, to bring them into the process.”
The search firm has developed a profile for the position, drawing on 200 survey responses. Coleman said that Berry’s next president should have an entrepreneurial mindset in addition to an appreciation of the school’s academic excellence and student-centered culture.
“We’ll be looking for someone who has the leadership, the toolkit, to innovate, to move Berry forward, to not just rest on our laurels, to manage a very complex enterprise in coordination with the board and the staff,” Coleman said.
In contrast with the process that selected Briggs as president in 2006, this search will be conducted as a closed process, meaning that candidates’ identities will not be made public until a finalist is selected.
“There have been a number of high-profile instances over the course of the last decade where a search committee was not careful about confidentiality, and that really hurt someone’s professional career outside of the search,” Coleman said. “The feedback we got was if it was an open search, we’d probably have a lot of the best candidates not applying because they’d be worried about the confidentiality of the process.”
The timeline for the next phase of the search is flexible according to Coleman, but the committee plans to start meeting with top candidates over the next few months. The committee’s goal is to recommend a final slate of candidates to the Board of Trustees by December. The board will then vote to select the new president.
“Our hope is that we get pretty close to [a] consensus on the right person, someone that stands out, but we do have a voting mechanism should it not be a consensus choice,” Coleman said.
Most of the Berry community’s input in the decision will come from the faculty, staff and student representatives on the committee. Professor of Philosophy Michael Papazian, the faculty representative on the committee, views his role as essential to making the right decision.
“I’m going to be coming at it from the perspective, mostly but not entirely, of academics — who would be a good president for maintaining the academic excellence of Berry College,” Papazian said. “It’s important to have every constituency represented because all of us are part of the bigger institution.”
Senior Grace Harmon, the committe’s student representative, has been relaying what she is hearing from students to other members.
“I just want [the president] to be as bought-in as we are,” Harmon said. “I’ve spoken with people who say they love seeing Briggs in D-Hall, they love how involved with campus he is.”
Harmon said her perspective has not been minimized in her experience on the committee.
“They genuinely do care about that perspective and about representing the students because the students will be impacted by this decision,” Harmon said.
Berry’s next president will be taking office at a time when higher education faces several challenges. With the number of high school graduates projected to fall in the coming years, colleges are likely to face financial shortfalls. Many small liberal arts schools like Berry, including nearby Birmingham Southern College, have closed in recent years, making financial stewardship an important consideration in the search.
“Berry is in an extremely strong financial position,” Coleman said. “I think the bigger thing is a deep understanding of what makes Berry unique and has made it such that we aren’t facing some of the challenges of other colleges.”
A hostile political climate for academia also has many faculty members concerned. Some conservative political figures have recently attempted to weaken tenure and place restrictions on curriculum. The positon profile does not require candidates to come from inside academia or make commitments to protecting tenure and academic freedom.
During a question and answer session at this year’s first Faculty Assembly meeting, several faculty members asked the search committee chair for assurance that the next president will respect academic freedom.
“My own take, and I’m not speaking for the search committee, is we don’t want to politicize the college,” Papazian said. “We want as much freedom of expression and a marketplace of ideas; that’s what the academic world requires.”
According to Coleman, the Board of Trustees and the search committee have no interest in making radical changes to tenure and academic freedom policies.
“Changing our tenure or the way we treat faculty at Berry has not really been a part of any discussions at the board level,” Coleman said. “Everybody at Berry is really happy with where the faculty stand, the process we’re using for faculty. As we’re selecting someone, I don’t think there’s been any demand to change the status quo.”
Those who would like to give their input on the search process can email the committee at presidentialsearch@berry.edu.