Letter to the Editor: Skip the national search

Dear Editor,

I see this same mistake made by college boards all the time. They hire these out-of-state firms so that they can claim to have done an “exhaustive, nationwide search” when really all they are doing is allowing the education establishment to pick their next short term President, V.P. or Dean.

I have lived in fifteen states, so far, and I see the same stupidity practiced by college boards over and over again. They take some candidate from a group of three delivered to them by some far-away consultant who has no ties to the community. The typical candidate hired from those search firms is only going to be there for two or three years. Once the new hire has served for two or three years at the college and has that ticket punched they resign. Then, the board is left playing the same recruitment roulette game again.

There are surely plenty of people who already work at Western Wyoming College who could serve as President. Such a local hire would already be invested in the college and the community. A local hire would also be there for the long term and make long term decisions.

One major problem that plagues administrations headed by the carpetbaggers who are offered by these distant search firms is that the new hire knows that that they will leave within a few years, so they make short term decisions that sometimes leave a financial or administrative mess for the next consultant- provided hire to try to clean-up.

I don’t have any local candidates in mind, but I am just hoping that the Board at Western Wyoming College stops playing the typical search firm games with executive hiring at the College. Skip the national firms and look for someone with a proven management background from Wyoming, who will make a long term commitment of ten to twenty years or more to the community, the College and especially to the students, faculty and staff.

J. Tyler Ballance

Laramie

 

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