April 27, 2009 10:18 PM UTC

How's That CSU Chancellor Search Coming?

• 6 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

The Colorado Independent reported late last week:

Rocked by the former president’s high stakes budget shifting, Colorado State University is gambling once again that upping administration costs will bolster the university in the future.

The controversial search for the land grant university’s first system chancellor comes amid faculty and staff layoffs, a looming multi-million budget shortfall and another round of expected state tuition hikes. But what good does a high-level executive ensconced in a Denver office bring to thousands of middle-class students and dwindling ranks of tenured faculty at the Fort Collins and Pueblo campuses?

The Colorado State University chancellor search committee has reviewed roughly 12 applications and has received roughly 12 more, according to the university. The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for May 4 and it aims to hire a new chancellor by July 1. The committee refuses to release the applicants’ names and is likely to present just one, its top choice, for public review.

The speed and secrecy of the search and the restricted membership of the search committee, which is made up mostly of CSU current or former board members and corporate CEOs, has irked some observers and CSU students…

That’s consistent with what we’re hearing about this “chancellorship” search process, another secretive affair that many observers fear will pick yet another conservative politico or “concerned” Republican businessman to head a major Colorado public university–adding to the ranks of CU’s Bruce “Trailhead” Benson, UNC’s Kay Norton, Mesa State’s Tim Foster, Metro State’s Stephen Jordan, and even though it’s not a public school we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Marc Holtzman’s stint at the University of Denver…enough of a list for you? We’ve asked this before–what’s the fixation with Republicans running universities? Hopefully it won’t be another case like Benson’s: all talk about raising the big bucks, but not even able to fund his precious “conservative studies” department.

That said, two CSU board members who fit the above profile to a T–Pat Grant and Joe Blake–are emerging as the most frequently-discussed potential choices. But while that’s informed speculation, it’s nothing conclusive, because the search committee isn’t disclosing anything. But perhaps more important, like the Independent asks–how is opening this fancy office in Denver in any way good for the financially struggling CSU System campuses miles away?