Itll be interesting to keep an eye on the University of Oregons search for a new president to replace Michael R. Gottfredson, who announced his sudden resignation last week after two years on the job.
The University of Oregons governing board, which officially started its duties on July 1, met Thursday and appointed Provost Scott Coltrane as the schools interim leader. It also approved a $940,000 severance payment to Gottfredson. (That works out to about $54 for every hour, waking and sleeping, that Gottfredson spent as president of the university.)
There was speculation last week that the resignation was not entirely voluntary, and its true that it bears some of the earmarks of a forced decision: The very quick effective date, for example, the fact that Gottfredson apparently has no other job lined up and the classic explanation in his letter about how one of the reasons for the resignation is that he wants to spend more time with his family.
Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the universitys governing board now proceeds with its search for a new president. Its likely to be a high-stakes, high-visibility search the first big test for any of the new governing boards now in place at the states three largest public universities.
Gottfredson was a major advocate of the plan to break governance of the university away from the state Board of Higher Education. One of the results of that effort was the formation of these university governing boards, which now are in place at the University of Oregon, Portland State University and OSU. (The states smaller regional universities will move to self-governance next year.)
The boards at Oregon, OSU and PSU officially got rolling on July 1. And now leaving aside the question of what role, if any, the Oregon board had in compelling Gottfredsons resignation that board will be responsible for hiring the universitys next president.
Weve argued in this space before about how important it is that these governing boards handle their affairs with the greatest possible amount of transparency and openness. This hiring process will be the first big test of that.
To be fair, the governing board probably cant do any worse than the process used to hire Gottfredson.
Lets hope the University of Oregons board with an opportunity to strike an example for university boards throughout the state sets its sights considerably higher.
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