UHCL’s tradition of shared governance impacts campus leadership hiring decisions
The University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL) has conducted searches and hosted candidates for several administrative leadership positions on campus this semester, including the Executive Director for the Neumann Library, the Director of the Veteran Services Office, the Associate Vice President for Strategic Information Initiatives and Technology and the Vice President of Student Affairs (VPSA).
Nearly every top administrative position has been replaced in the past 12 to 18 months, with more high profile positions to be filled in the coming months. The university’s hiring process is influenced by the university’s history of shared governance.
A standard process
As explained by Abby Varela, senior employment coordinator for the Office of Human Resources (HR), each candidate search and hire is different and can vary greatly, depending on if the process is managed through HR’s in-house resources or if it is managed through an externally contracted hiring firm.
The VPSA search, for example, is being managed and conducted through an outside search firm, RPA Inc.
Varela explained that the university’s HR does not impact the hiring process utilized by outside hiring firms, which can lead to differences in approach from hire to hire. But HR does try to maintain uniform standards for in-house hiring.
“Our goal is to have a standard process,” Varela said. “But there is a lot of ebb and flow, and each hiring situation is different.”
In general, however, the in-house hiring process follows a pattern: HR posts the position on the university’s website, as well as other notable online databases; the position is advertised for a minimum of 10 days; then HR reviews all candidates to verify qualifications.
From here, most positions follow a process determined by their individual hiring managers — typically whoever the new hire would be reporting to. All professional staff searches, which includes director-level and above, must be directed by a search committee to further narrow, review and interview candidates.
Search committees and shared governance
The search committees formed for director-level and above hiring processes are reflections of the university’s tradition of shared governance. Per the university website, in the late 1980s, the Faculty Senate “constructed a new kind of shared governance in which consensus within the UHCL community of faculty, staff, students and administrators would produce policies and related procedures for operating the university.”
Search committees consist of members of the university’s faculty, staff and students, a practice those involved in past personnel searches credit with better final hiring decisions.
Izuh Ikpeama, biology major and outgoing Student Government Association (SGA) president, has represented the student body on several search committees in the past and feels students provide essential perspective to the hiring decisions for university leadership.
“[The committee members] want to hear what students have to say,” Ikpeama said. “It’s an important perspective, seeing as these search committees are helping to hire administrators that directly help and work with students.”
Having students represented on these search committees does not only benefit the hiring managers, Ikpeama explained.
“These high-level positions decide various things that could directly affect students,” Ikpeama said. “Having a student on the committee to voice and advocate for a candidate with all students’ best interests at heart is imperative.”
Marlene Richards, UHCL Police Department police civilian supervisor and University Staff Association (USA) president, expressed how important staff input was to the shared governance process.
“This process depends highly on staff participation in outgoing surveys,” Richards said. “There have been a great number of search committees going on within the past two years, [and] there has been staff representation on each one. It may not always be a representative from the USA Executive Board, but there is always a staff member involved.”
Staff interest in participation, in both the USA and shared governance in general, has dropped in recent years, Richards explained. But, she is hopeful that greater departmental staff support for attendance to these events can improve participation.
“Without participation outside of active board members, we can only go so far,” Richards said. “[The USA] wants to hear concerns from staff and advocate for their needs. We must have supervisor and administrative support to have staff involved. Staff is a large part of UHCL, and we can be active in helping mold UHCL’s future. There is a place for everyone to serve where you feel confident in your abilities and be a part of a community of staff members that want to see UHCL succeed. If UHCL succeeds, we will too.”
Open forum candidate presentations
After the search committee narrows down the candidates, conducts first-level interviews and provides feedback regarding the candidates to the hiring manager, the top candidates are invited to participate in on-campus interviews. For some high-level administrative positions, search committees will arrange an interview with the candidates at one of the nearby airports before inviting them to the campus. Though there is no official requirement, traditionally, director-level and above candidates give open forum presentations for the public on the days that they are on campus.
These presentations allow for the candidates to meet with the various interest groups on campus, explained Varela.
Diana Portales, business administration major with a concentration in international business and graduate assistant for marketing and promotions for Campus Recreation and Wellness, was involved with arranging the open forums held for the recent VPSA candidate interviews on campus. She agreed that candidates being able to meet with different interest groups on campus is a valuable aspect of the open forum presentations.
“It’s important for the candidates to hear all sides of the story,” Portales said. “They can hear from the students’ perspective, to see if they’re a good fit for the students and the university as a whole.”
On a non-traditional campus like UHCL, however, it is often difficult to get the word of these open forum presentations out to everyone who needs to hear about them, Portales said.
“This is a unique university,” Portales said. “Trying to get information out to our students is difficult.”
Ikpeama suggested the university could be doing more to inform students of these presentations.
“There could be a more intentional form of advertising for the open forum meetings for various candidates,” Ikpeama said. “Students are usually only sent one email inviting them to these open forum meetings. Although this shouldn’t be the case, the vast majority of students don’t check their email often, so a large population of students simply don’t even know the sessions are happening.”
Portales agreed, noting that the recent open forum presentations for the VPSA that were advertised to students were held at times that made them inaccessible to a large portion of the student population.
“Most of our students are older and have classes in the afternoon,” Portales said. “If the candidates are only available to the general public from 9 to 10 in the morning, you are closing them off from a lot of students. Having all of the presentations at the same time each day doesn’t allow many students to attend.”
Hiring managers are not required to invite feedback, following these open forum meetings, Varela explained. Regardless, she continued, the meetings are often the only chance for the general public to meet the candidates and pose questions of them.
“[Everyone] is encouraged to attend the open forums,” Varela said. “It’s why we organize those, so people can meet the candidates.”
Varela equates low attendance to these open forums to lost chances for input into the hiring process.
“The feedback is valuable,” Varela said. “But you have to do your part.”
Seach committee recommendations
After the candidates complete their on-campus interviews with the search committee and optional open forum presentations with the general public, the search committee traditionally gathers all feedback and meets one last time to discuss the candidates and formulate a recommendation to the hiring manager.
Mike McMullen, professor of sociology and current Faculty Senate president, has served on multiple search committees during his time with the university. He explained that the amount of time search committees members spend with the candidates makes them a good source of insight into the candidates.
“The committee has spent the most time with these candidates,” McMullen said. “You have phone interviews, airport interviews with some, and you have on-campus interviews where you can spend a little more time.”
That final meeting, when the search committee meets after all the interviews and crafts a recommendation to give to the hiring manager, is key to the search committee providing quality recommendations, McMullen said.
“Having that meeting afterwards is a last chance for people to do some comparisons, or reflect on ‘Well, when I had lunch with him in a more relaxed atmosphere, I got a different insight than with people in more formal presentation or on the phone interview,’” McMullen said.
The VPSA search
As of production date, an announcement regarding the selection of the new VPSA has not been made, but one is expected at any time.
However, that final meeting of the VPSA search committee, during which the committee has the opportunity to provide a final recommendation to hire, did not take place.
“I heard it was because everybody already had a chance to submit their evaluations,” McMullen said. “But, I still thought that was odd, that that final committee meeting to wrap up on additional insights that might have occurred with the on-campus interviews [didn’t happen].”
McMullen clarified that the search committee, along with the general public who had attended the open forum presentations, had opportunities to provide general feedback through other mechanisms, such as the weblinks sent out via email.
“What didn’t happen was just that last search committee meeting,” McMullen said.
Steven Berberich, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, served as co-chair of the search committee for the VPSA position, whose candidates were on campus April 15-19. Berberich explained that while the final hiring decision for the VPSA position ultimately rests with President Blake, to whom the person in this position will report, the input of the search committee helps the decision-making process.
“The search committee’s insight and feedback assist the university and ultimately the president in identifying a diverse and inclusive set of talented candidates,” Berberich said.
Berberich explained that, after the on-campus interviews for the VPSA, “all feedback was collected by the search firm (RPA Inc.) and shared directly with the President. In cases where a search firm is not used, that often falls to the search committee.”
For the search committees, he had served on in the past, both run by outside hiring firms, McMullen said that coordinating timetables took some effort, and he wonders if that might not have caused miscommunication about providing feedback and recommendations for the VPSA search process.
“There was always some give and take to mesh [the hiring firm’s] timetable with what we could do here at the university,” McMullen said. “So maybe that was part of the miscommunication that happened for this last search.”
McMullen hopes that faculty, staff and students don’t take the lack of a final search committee meeting as a sign that their insight is not valued by university administration.
“All the experience I’ve had with the new president, Dr. Blake, and with Dr. Berberich, our new provost, is that that is not the case,” McMullen said. “They actively reach out to get faculty feedback. I would not use this little snafu as representative that ‘We do not want faculty feedback.’ That does not speak to all the experience I’ve had over the last two years.”
Moving forward with shared governance
Although shared governance has been a key element to the way the university develops and implements policies, makes hiring decisions and responds to the needs of faculty, staff and students since its adoption in the 1980s, McMullen said not every administration has given the principle the same weight.
“I’ve been here since 1995,” McMullen said, noting his history serving on the faculty senate as a senator and as its president. “I would say over the last 10 years, the relationship between [the past] administration and faculty had become very strained. We did not feel like the administration was supporting or honoring shared governance.”
McMullen feels that the new administration being built by Blake is moving in the right direction, in regard to shared governance.
“I think faculty realized that the administration now has a commitment to shared governance,” McMullen said. “Relationships are much better between faculty and administration. And, every time that a search committee has been formed, or a strategic planning process is being developed, faculty, as well as staff and students, have been invited to participate.”
Shared governance requires participation, however, which could be a difficult thing to ask of new faculty, McMullen explained.
“If a new faculty member is hired at UHCL, for the first five or so years, they are focused on getting tenure,” McMullen said. “They have to do very good teaching, they have to publish a certain number of articles. They’re focused on that. It’s hard, and I would say even unfair, to try to expect them to be active on Faculty Senate.”
And, the same could be said for students and their involvement with the SGA, McMullen said.
“Even right now, 90% of students are commuter,” McMullen said. “They have jobs and families… It’s a lot to expect a student representative on shared governance or in Student Government Association, to be there for meetings, in addition to schoolwork and their work life and their family life.”
McMullen said it’s possible this might change, with the addition of residence halls on campus and the shift in student demographics that their construction brings.
“But, that [shift] could take up to 10 years,” McMullen said.
In the meantime, he hopes that students will participate whenever they are able.
“Our new president is committed to shared governance,” McMullen said. “I would encourage students that she clearly wants to hear from students, so whatever time you can give to representing the student voice on a committee or an open forum, that is really appreciated by our current president.”
As for faculty, and rebuilding the trust they have in the administration’s commitment to shared governance, McMullen hopes to communicate his faith in the new administration.
“Some people kind of gave up on believing in shared governance because of what had happened in the past,” McMullen said. “What we’re trying to do, these last couple of years, is to try to help people realize we now have a voice again. We don’t always get the answer we want, but at least we’re at the table.”
