This paper is the fourth revision of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) paper on equivalency adopted by the delegates to the plenary session in Fall 1989. Previous revisions were adopted in 1999, 2006, and 2016. The original paper was intended to help local academic senates develop policies and procedures in response to…

As the higher education leadership landscape has become more complicated, particularly through retirements, there is greater difficulty in finding the best candidates for non-presidential positions, which has resulted in more facilitated searches. Candidate recruitment is the most visible work, but equally important is managing, enhancing, and…

Colleges and universities looking to recruit leaders from within the faculty ranks will face more and more difficulty. From their respective positions--as a provost (Janel) and a search consultant (Dennis)--they often hear senior executives in higher education say that building a new generation of faculty leaders will be a major challenge in the…

Board of education members come and go, but the community remains. Wise candidates for a superintendent position, as well as the dedicated board members involved in fulfilling this important duty, understand this and therefore want the public to be part of the superintendent search process. As a search consultant to school boards for 20 years, the…

In this article, the author shares some of the lessons about leadership he learned when he became chancellor of the University of Georgia in 2006. He realized that the route to leadership in the private sector differs significantly from the route in higher education. The path to leadership in the academe is not only poorly marked, but it does not…

Even by the standards of higher education, presidential search committees are odd concoctions, combining the dynamics of the governing board, the faculty, the administration and staff, and the students in an environment that is, at best, unusual and, at worst, adversarial. Ultimately, however, that committee's work is vital to the future of the…

The president has just announced her plans to leave the college within the next year. What is the board going to do? At Wilmington College in Delaware, the board relaxed and continued with its business without missing a beat. That's because a succession plan had been in place for several years, and it was just a matter of deciding the details of…

Gives advice about dealing with group interviews in an academic environment, addressing the following topics: location, politics, preparation, presentation, and follow-up. (SK)

Examines mistakes often made in administrative searches. Discusses qualifications, advertising, salary, and interviewing. Argues that hiring an administrator is not like hiring another faculty member and that it does not pay to save money on the search, to hire someone like the person who left, or to hire someone who is like other faculty members.…

While the use of a search committee may be a more representative method, it may not be the most effective method for selecting a new president. The use of both a search consultant and a search committee permits the delegation of the "search" to the consultant and the "selection" to the committee. (MLW)

Outlines the most effective ways of conducting a search for new English department faculty on the college level. (SRT)

This article suggests that trustees give the same high level of thoughtful consideration to selecting the board chair as they give to filling the presidency. More than the routine filling of a vacancy, the process for naming the board's next chair amounts to the selection of a governance team. The board's most important responsibility is not only…

Offers several suggestions to help women seeking administrative posts, including to volunteer for committees and after-school jobs, join a few good professional and community organizations, apply for a special job such as director or evaluator, and publish something. (JM)

Problems in the process of selecting new administrators are discussed, including confidentiality, resumes and letters of recommendation, the interview, committee membership, and inside candidates. (MSE)

Search committees can learn more about their top candidates by conducting brief, structured, preliminary interviews with them before deciding who to invite to an on-campus interview. These interviews reveal the candidates' abilities to match criteria of the search. (MLW)