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[Note: This material is copyright by the Press-Citizen, and is reproduced here as a matter of "fair use" for non-commercial, educational purposes only. Any other use may require the prior approval of the Iowa City Press-Citizen.]

Why bring them to campus?

Campus visits provide a basis for a thorough and accurate assessment of candidate capabilities. During the on-campus evaluation process, candidates meet with multiple groups of campus and community leaders for serious and substantive discussions about the university's strengths and weaknesses, about the challenges facing the university and public higher education and about the candidate's views on how to address those challenges.

Much is learned about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the different candidates from their performances in these varied, demanding and stimulating meetings.

Campus visits also permit the search committee to gather additional and critical background information about a candidate. During the confidential stages of a presidential search, only limited inquiry about a candidate's reputation and past job performance is possible. Search committee members can solicit opinions from people approved by the candidate, and they can review media accounts of the candidate's past activities. But calling a candidate's hand-picked references and reading news stories about the candidate are unlikely to yield complete information about a candidate's record.

By contrast, when candidates are publicly identified as part of an on-campus interview process, the search committee can perform a much more rigorous investigation of the candidate's past leadership record. Every top candidate will have served in administrative posts at other institutions, and the committee will be able to identify and speak to people at those institutions who have firsthand knowledge of each candidate's performance in prior positions. The information gathered from these conversations is likely to be considerably more accurate and complete than any information the committee obtains in other ways.

The campus interview process also helps sell the university to candidates who might be unsure about whether they would be happy here. Candidates invariably find on-campus interviews to be challenging, intellectually stimulating and fun. They leave campus feeling better about UI and more enthusiastic about the job than when they came.

Finally, on-campus interviews give candidates a chance to sell themselves to the many university, alumni and community leaders who participate in the on-campus process. This creates enthusiasm for the candidates and ensures that the candidate who is ultimately selected as president will come to campus with some degree of pre-existing support. That, in turn, increases the chances that the new president will be successful in the critical early months of his or her tenure.

Err on the side of openness

Some executive search firms tell their clients that on-campus visits are no longer a realistic option because candidates increasingly insist on confidentiality throughout the process.

That is a misinterpretation of the situation. To be sure, top candidates generally prefer to have their identities kept secret, and they will insist on confidentiality early in the process. But when they reach the final stages and are forced to choose between going public or withdrawing from the process, most will agree to go public.

There may be circumstances where the tradition of campus visits would need to be altered in order to ensure a successful search. For example, if several of the very best candidates adamantly refused to go forward if public on-campus interviews were required, then this might warrant a change of policy.

But that is a decision that should be made by a search committee. And it is a decision that should be made near the end of the search process, not at the beginning.

Only after the top candidates have been identified can the committee discover whether it will lose good candidates if on-campus interviews are held. And only then can the committee determine whether those candidates are exciting enough that it makes sense to forego the public campus visit in order to keep the candidates in the pool.

The presumption should be in favor of the on-campus interview process. It is the most effective way to ensure that we identify and attract the very best possible leader for the university. For that reason, on-campus interviews should be retained as a part of any search process unless and until it becomes clear that they will prevent the search from being successful.
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Jonathan Carlson is a professor in the University of Iowa College of Law. He chaired the search committee that led to the appointment of former UI President David Skorton.