The Tufts community will learn the identity of the next resident of Gifford House by the start of next semester, as administrators confirm that the search for the university's next president, a procedure largely kept under wraps, is on schedule and set to conclude by the end of 2010.
A search committee of 13 people, including alumni, faculty members, administrators and one student, is working this fall to shortlist three or four final candidates for the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees to interview, according to an e−mail sent in June to the Tufts community from Presidential Search Committee Chair Peter Dolan (A '78).
The Executive Committee will then make its final recommendation to the full Board of Trustees, which will make a decision by the end of this year, according to the e−mail from Dolan, who is also the vice chair of the Board of Trustees.
Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler said that the search was on track to meet this deadline.
"The committee and board have always said the goal was to complete the process by the end of the year, and that is still the expectation," she said in an e−mail to the Daily.
Students will have to be kept in suspense until then, however. Thurler said that the search committee will not release further updates about possible candidates until it has arrived at a final decision.
"I would not anticipate any announcements regarding finalists," she said. Searching for a leader
University President Lawrence Bacow announced in February that he would retire as president at the end of the 2010−11 academic year after completing a 10−year tenure.
The search committee, which convened in February, is using the executive search firm Isaacson, Miller to field applicants to fill the position, according to Dolan's e−mail. The firm also worked with Tufts on the search that led to Bacow's appointment in 2001.
John Isaacson, founder of Isaacson, Miller, is personally managing the search, Chair of the Board of Trustees James Stern (E '72) said in an e−mail to the Tufts community in February.
Isaacson said his firm is working to field applicants in a way that will make the process more manageable for the search committee.
"We are like a specialized staff to the search committee with an expertise developed out of long involvement in this kind of work," Isaacson said in an e−mail to the Daily.
"They are the decision−makers," he continued. "Our task is to make their job easier by giving them more information on a schedule and presented in a way that makes them more, not less efficient."
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, chairman of the Education Specialty Practice at the executive search firm Korn/Ferry, said universities usually work with search firms to reduce the applicant pool based on resumes and letters of interest.
"Universities increasingly hire using search firms," he told the Daily. "It usually means they can find candidates they might not themselves be able to get their hands on."
Trachtenberg is particularly familiar with the process behind searching for a university president. He stepped down as president of The George Washington University in 2007, and is a coeditor of the book "The Art of Hiring in America's Colleges and Universities" (1993).
Trachtenberg said that narrowing down the list of candidates is a nuanced process.
"The search for a leader is very daunting," he said. "You start with 100, and then you cut it to 40, and you're working your way toward a group small enough to interview in two days."
Above all, though, the final choice comes down to a gut judgment, he said.
"You've done the background check, and ultimately, you make the choice. It's a very human process. It is not a science; it's an art," he said.
Isaacson, Miller submitted advertisements for the position to publications such as the Chronicle of Higher Education and Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, according to Thurler. Presidential timber
The quality of the candidates for the position has impressed the search committee thus far, Thurler told the Daily in an interview.
A description of the position, outlined in a document posted on the presidential search website, calls for candidates who will remain committed to sustaining Tufts' "diverse and inclusive community," retaining an "increasingly distinguished faculty," building upon philanthropic efforts and maintaining the university's commitment to the study of the life sciences.
Among other qualifications, the document calls for someone who has served as a "strategic leader of a highly complex organization," as well as an individual who has an extensive understanding of academic values and culture.
The qualities desired in university presidential candidates vary depending on the university's long− and short−term goals, Trachtenberg said.
"At different times you need different kinds of people," he said. "You develop your criteria and what you're looking for, and then you decide how you're going to run the campaign."
Tufts' status as an established research institution, he said, will affect how the committee approaches the search process.
"It's different from being president of an up−and−coming university," he said. "There's more maintenance and less creativity involved."
Still, Trachtenberg believes the university is looking to gain from fresh leadership skills.
"Inevitably, Tufts wants to be bigger … and better, and so they're going to want someone who will take them in that direction and help them with what they want to accomplish," he said.
Thurler said that the search committee is considering an international pool of applicants from both academic and nonacademic sectors, but Trachtenberg believes that the group will most likely draw from academia during the later stages of its search.
Joe Onstott, founder and managing director at Wellesley−based executive search firm The Onstott Group, envisioned that the search would probably produce a pool of candidates who are not currently working in Massachusetts.
"Looking at other area schools, my guess is the person would come from outside Massachusetts," he told the Daily. "It's unlikely that they'll pull someone from one of the other Massachusetts colleges or universities."
Thurler maintained that the search committee has been drawing from the views of the entire Tufts community in discharging its mandate.
The search committee held open forums on campus in April to garner student input for the selection process. It also conducted a number of "listening tours" on the Medford/Somerville, Boston and Grafton campuses that were open to the entire Tufts community.
"The search committee had been inviting the feedback from the Tufts community when the committee was doing the listening tours," she said in the interview.
Input from a university community can provide a useful "quality of optics," but conflicting opinions can complicate such discussions, Trachtenberg said.
"By the time you get through all the things that people are looking for, they are all mutually inconsistent," he said. "If you satisfy this person, you're going to dissatisfy the other."
Typically, Trachtenberg said, once presidential search committees have narrowed down the field down to two options, they will visit the candidates' current campuses to speak to people about the impact they have made in their current position.
"It does get you a confidence factor if you talk to people who know the candidate," he said.
