N.D. higher ed board backs secret job applications

BISMARCK — North Dakota’s Board of Higher Education will ask the Legislature’s support for keeping secret the applications of people who seek a campus presidency or the job of university system chancellor.

The applications and other information submitted by candidates are now public information under North Dakota’s open records laws. The proposed change, which the board endorsed Thursday, gives college officials the option of keeping the information confidential until five semifinalists for the position are chosen.

At that point, the applications and records of the semifinalists would be made public, the legislation says. The applications of candidates who did not make the semifinalist list would remain under wraps.

Bill Goetz, the chancellor of North Dakota’s university system, said the state’s open selection process has scared off presidents at other colleges from applying for North Dakota openings.

“We are really creating a situation where we are not getting ... as broad a pool (of applicants) as we should be, as a result of the fact that this information is being made public,” he said in an interview.

Eight of North Dakota’s public college presidents have resigned since June 2006. Each departure has required the appointment of a search committee to recruit the person’s successor.

“We’ve had quite a number of searches,” Goetz said. “It is certainly a demonstrated point that we have lost applicants as a result of their submitting an application and it becoming public knowledge that they are interested in a position in the state of North Dakota.”

The board voted Thursday to change its presidential search committee policy to ensure board members will choose from at least three finalists when hiring a new campus president.

The new policy says the board will reject any finalist list that has fewer than three names. It may ask the committee to reconsider its choices or add candidates of the board’s own choosing, the policy says.

The change was influenced by the February hiring of University of North Dakota President Robert Kelley, a former dean of health sciences at the University of Wyo-ming.

Kelley was the only finalist recommended by a search committee appointed to look for a successor to President Charles Kupchella.

The board initially discussed the policy change in September, and gave it final approval during a telephone conference call meeting Thursday. It takes effect immediately.

Tags: higher education, north dakota, board, universities