Kevin Rennie: Secrecy in CT plays an outsized and destructive role in a process

Eastern Connecticut State University President Elsa Nunez announced her retirement after 17 years leading the public liberal arts school. “[N]o amount of love can stop the passage of time, and, for me, the time has come to embrace the next phase of my life,” Nunez wrote in a statement notable for its grace in these fractious times.

Nunez has presided over many improvements in ESCU, expanding its offerings to students who would often see a four-year college education as out of reach. She has been faithful to ECSU’s mission to provide a liberal arts education in an era of growing emphasis on narrow vocational training. Under her leadership, the school’s finances have improved.

These achievements would stand out at any time but Nunez has guided ESCU as the state’s population of college-age students continues to decline. She has provided a stark contrast to the mess at Western Connecticut State University which has been unable to come to terms with falling enrollment among Connecticut students.

The January 2 deadline for applications to replace Nunez has been preceded by months of preparation for a complicated and secretive process that will end in the announcement of a new president on March 1, according to a target timeline released by the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities administration in June.

CSCU has engaged WittKeiffer, an executive search company that declares its  purpose as “improving quality of life through impactful leadership.” We’ll never know how or if WittKeiffer fulfills its mission because secrecy plays an outsized and destructive role in a process that would benefit from some sunshine.

“This search will be conducted confidentially; no candidate will appear on campus,” one CSCU explanation of convoluted process declared. The ECSU Senate, comprised of faculty and administrators, saw the danger of secrecy and did what university senates do: It passed a resolution condemning the poisonous concentration of power at the top of the CSCU bureaucracy, it believes the best candidates come forward if guaranteed secrecy. That’s not the sort of candidate who should lead a public university.

The resolution makes vital points about the selection process. The most salient is that past presidential searches have “required the finalists to visit campuses to meet faculty, staff, and students prior to being offered the position.” Those campus visits have “only helped, and not hindered, the search process.” The outstanding example of this is Nunez. When she retired, Gov. Ned Lamont praised her service not only to ESCU but also to the state. CSCU Chancellor Terrence Cheng wrote, “Under [Nunez’s] able leadership, the university has grown stronger, cementing itself as the state’s public liberal arts institution. She has also been an invaluable asset to the system in her role as vice president for universities.”

Transparency in choosing the head of a public university benefits everyone. Secrecy alienates. It also leads to calamitous results. We need look only to former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, now chancellor of the University of Maine System. Malloy and calamity appearing in the same sentence is a phenomenon painfully familiar to Connecticut residents. Leaders in Maine chose to ignore our experience and picked him to run their university system.

In 2022, Malloy failed to disclose that the successful candidate for the presidency of the University of Maine Augusta campus, Michael Laliberte, had been the subject of no-confidence votes by the faculty the State University of New York at Delhi while Laliberte was president. Malloy knew of the faculty votes but kept them from the Maine search committee.

One of the complaints against Laliberte was the lack of transparency at the Delhi campus. He withdrew from the position but not before negotiating a sweet deal with the public university. It would pay Laliberte $20,000 a month, up to $700,000, until he found a job. Secrecy is expensive. Malloy’s expensive blunder prompted one of several no-confidence motions in him. The University of Maine board of trustees is larded with politically connected figures who have declined to acknowledge their own mistake in hiring Malloy in 2019 and extending his contract this year.

University presidents often become prominent figures in their communities and beyond. A successful one requires the ability to speak in public in a manner that reflects his or her fealty to our common values of freedom under the rule of law.

The two months since Hamas inflicted its barbaric instincts on Israelis have emboldened murderous antisemites to break cover on, among other places, American college campuses. The embrace of genocide by some students and the failure of some prominent university presidents to confront and condemn it is one of the most important events of this year.

The finalists for the ECSU presidency might face some hostile encounters with students who do not embrace the spirit of a liberal arts education. How those candidates react and the values they deploy to refute antisemitism could be the most revealing moment in the search for a president. It is a test that must be conducted in public.