By Jeffrey Riester, '70
Chair of the Lawrence University Board of Trustees
The following is adapted from a longer article appearing in the Spring 2003 issue of Lawrence Today magazine.
When Richard Warch retires as president of Lawrence University in June 2004, he will have served an extraordinary 25 years. By all measures, he has led Lawrence with distinction, and the college has flourished during his tenure. Selection and appointment of his successor, the 15th president of the college, along with ensuring a smooth transition in leadership, are now the most important challenges -- and opportunities -- facing the Board of Trustees. The officers of the Board have been preparing for this moment for some time, and work is already underway.
One cannot overstate how different this presidential search will be from the ones that came before it. I served on the 1979 search committee (as an alumni representative) and have reveled, as only a history major could, in a review of the records of that committee's work. In some ways, this search process will be like the 1979 search -- the Trustees will appoint a search committee made up of alumni, students, faculty, and trustees, and the college will place advertisements in all the usual publications. But the world of higher education has changed dramatically in the two and half decades since our last appointment of a new president, and Lawrence's search will reflect those changes. Here, as I see it, are some of the new realities we face.
A changing role in a changing society
Rik Warch would be among the first to tell you that the job he took on in 1979 and the job he performs now are very different indeed. A college president today, even more than yesteryear, must be an individual of multiple talents and predilections. As Alan Guskin and Mary Marcy pointed out in a September/October 2002 article in Trusteeship magazine, "choosing a chief executive has always been a challenge, but the complexities and unpredictability of higher education today have heightened the difficulties. This uncertainty reflects the rapidly changing nature of society as well as the internal pressures for a new kind of leader -- one who is expected to provide firm guidance, bring a deep sense of humility marked by collaborative decision making, offer personal attention to external constituencies, and balance the emotional with the intellectual in a sea of ambiguity." It is a rare individual, indeed, who can step up to those expectations.
The era of the long-serving president may be a thing of the past. While two or three decades ago, it was not uncommon for a college or university president to serve at a single institution for ten to 15 years or more, the average tenure today for public university presidents is only five years in office and for presidents of private colleges, about seven years. This places an even greater premium on finding the best fit between the candidate and the college, so as to ensure a more stable period of leadership.
Another feature of present-day presidential searches is that the pace of such endeavors has greatly accelerated. Gone are the days of leisurely correspondence and leisurely deliberation, replaced by teleconferencing and e-mail, expectations of quick action by stakeholders and candidates alike, and the need to move swiftly to attract and sustain the interest of the best and the brightest. We are immensely grateful to Rik Warch for giving us such a long interval to adequately prepare for what will be in practice -- in keeping with other presidential searches -- a very intense 22-week process. We are more confident of our ability to take on such an important task in such a short amount of time because of the preparation time allotted by Rik's early announcement of his retirement plans.
As the pace of higher education and society has accelerated, so have the complexities of the presidential job market. Fewer and fewer academic deans and other qualified individuals desire to take on the enormous demands and pressures of the modern-day college presidency. Finding the right candidate is an even more time-consuming and difficult task in today's environment.
The Trustees at first considered "going it alone" without any outside help but soon realized that would be a mistake. We are not just looking for the next occupant of Sampson House. With this search Lawrence will take an important step in building the institution itself, and that requires acquiring a level of expertise and experience that only a specialist can provide. As such, the Board will engage a professional search consulting firm to help plan for and operate the search process.
This is an opportunity to explore our vision for Lawrence, to understand it in new ways, to translate that understanding into a description of our next leader, and to build support among all Lawrence constituencies for the next president. We must marshal the best resources available to realize the significant potential the search affords.
Finally, our search will be different from previous ones because of our aspirations for its success. Because Lawrence is a more ambitious enterprise than it was 25 years ago, and because higher education is so different, we must set very lofty goals for ourselves. Rik Warch and Lawrence grew into a successful pairing during higher education's most dynamic period. Because of where he has taken us, we are able to seek -- and we will find -- a woman or man who can lead Lawrence to new heights during an extraordinarily challenging period.
How we will proceed
The search process will be an "open" one -- that is, we will invite and involve active participation by all constituencies, not only on the search committee but during other stages of the process. We will begin with organizational tasks and a period of pre-search study during which the consultant and the committee will define our goals and devise a plan of operation.
Next, the search team (committee and consultant) will develop two critical documents: an Institutional Profile and a Statement of Leadership Characteristics of the next president. These key writings will be done in consultation with alumni, students, faculty, and staff and ultimately be approved by the Trustees. Once in place, the Profile and Statement of Leadership Characteristics will serve as "touchstones" throughout the process.
The search team will elicit candidates through advertising and from nominations derived from many sources, as well as through the recruiting efforts of the consultant. Then they will screen and evaluate the pool of candidates, narrowing the number to 12-15 and interviewing them off campus. During this period the process will "go dark," with much of the work being done very privately. The process will come to the surface again in its latter stages, during which candidates will visit campus. We want to be sure the finalists are in Appleton during the peak of Wisconsin's winter (preferably during a blizzard), so we can test their resolve and satisfy all full disclosure requirements! After receiving the search team's recommendations, the Board of Trustees will act upon the appointment in late winter or early spring 2004.
Looking to the future
More information will be provided as the work proceeds, consistent with protection of confidentiality regarding candidacies. In the meantime, of course, life will go on at Lawrence without interruption. We know that Rik Warch will not comfortably relax into "lame duck" status; work, change, and challenge at Lawrence will continue at a rapid pace. Excitement will build for new leadership even as we celebrate the Warch years and all they have meant.
