Dear Editor: It has never made sense to me why universities routinely hire expensive external search firms to select new leaders. (“UW-Madison students and staff explain what they want in a new chancellor,” Sept. 11).
UW-Madison is slated to pay national search firm Isaacson, Miller more than $260,000 just a year after UW-Madison departments campuswide were asked to significantly trim their budgets.
Being UW-Madison’s chancellor is a vastly important and difficult role, with the university’s next leader expected to navigate Wisconsin’s fractured political environment, the rise of AI, the federal assault on research universities and many other thorny issues.
But UW-Madison is a world-renowned research university that will certainly attract numerous qualified candidates — both internal and external — for the open chancellor role. Aren’t UW’s Board of Regents — paired with a search committee composed of UW-Madison’s faculty, staff and students — best positioned to understand what the university needs in a new leader, and to make the ultimate hire?
Another important consideration is the fact that the widespread use of search firms could be shrinking the average tenure of university lea...