Finding the best fit for St. Michael’s
Board members comment on the task of selecting a new president

Izabela Socha | photo editor
isocha@smcvt.edu

The arduous process of finding the new president of St. Michael’s College is coming to an end. The board of trustees along with its appointed search committee has chosen and revealed what they believed to be the three best candidates for the presidency.

The start of a yearlong process

As President vanderHeyden announced his retirement after the 2006-07 school year, the St. Michael’s board of trustees was responsible for taking on the task of beginning the presidential search. The first step was to find a suitable search firm to assist in finding potential candidates.

Joseph Garrity, chairman of the St. Michael’s board of trustees, says that the reason for hiring a firm was simple, “You want to be able to cast a net as wide as you can.”

Joseph Garrity is chairman of the board of trustees and part of the presidential search committee. (photo courtesy of the presidents office)

Hiring a search firm is the best decision to get the greatest possible options. Seven to eight firms submitted proposals to the board of trustees and only four were interviewed, Garrity says. The trustees decided on a firm guided by Dr. James Ferrare, president of Academic Search, Inc.

“What was different about Mr. Ferrare’s presentation was that he said, ‘We’re here not to just find you a successful president, we are here to launch you a successful presidency,” Garrity says.

The board of trustees began working with Academic Search, Inc. between March and April of 2006 and advertisements ran online and through various other sources not long after.

The next step was to compile a separate search committee that would include a smaller group of trustees and non-trustees to filter through all potential applicants.

“We wanted to have representation of all facets of the community,” says Garrity.

This search committee is comprised of 11 members. The committee and the board of trustees met about every two weeks to discuss how this process would end up coming together. The advertisements were run on the Academic Search Inc. Web site, and applications started coming in automatically.

Reading and analyzing resumés

The search committee began working through more than 70 applications during August 2006. They cut the applications down to about 25 very easily because some were more qualified than others based on their “Agenda for Leadership, Priorities and Presidential Attributes,” which can be found in the Presidential Prospectus on the Academic Search, Inc. Web site, Garrity says.

Trixi Schmied, the 2008 class president, was the only student serving on the search committee. She says that looking at the resumes took the longest amount of time.

“I learned a lot throughout the process about what the actual role of the president is,” Schmied says. “I learned what to ask and what not to ask.”

Analyzing all of the applications took a long time because every person on the search committee provided suggestions from different viewpoints.

Rev. Michael Cronogue, S.S.E., is a board of trustees member and was also selected to be part of the search committee. Cronogue says he spent more than 40 hours reading and analyzing the applications. Cronogue is very satisfied with the three finalists.

Rev. Michael Cronogue, S.S.E., is part of the board of trustees and the search committee. (echo archive)

“They had a good record. They had been successful where they were; that’s the one thing the search consultant told us to look for,” Cronogue says. “They all would be good candidates. They bring different strengths and challenges. We went out of our way to bring the best.”

The final stages

The 25 applications were then cut down to 12 after more consideration, and these applicants had their references checked. After reference checks were completed six potential candidates were invited for “airport interviews” on Nov. 9-10, 2006, Garrity says.

These "airport interviews" were off-campus at the Sheraton Hotel in Burlington, Vt., to ensure the potential candidates’ confidentiality. The entire search committee questioned six applicants for 90 minutes each. After cutting the number down to three potential candidates, the search committee invited them for follow-up interviews on Dec. 6-8, 2006. To ensure the committee members would get to know the candidates as well as possible, they broke up into groups of three to four people and spoke with the candidates casually at lunches and other activities.

Most of the interviews were based around food, Garrity says, which was a better way to get to know the candidates.

Finally, Joseph Garrity announced the three finalists of the presidential search. On Jan. 17-19, the candidates came to St. Michael’s and spoke in a question-and-answer public forum. All three candidates were then further questioned in all day meetings with the entire board of trustees on Friday, Jan. 19.

Garrity says that after this process is complete, the trustees will receive feedback from the search committee, students and faculty, then subsequently decide and announce who will be the next president. This process will probably take a few weeks, and the announcement will be made soon thereafter. The board of trustees will have to negotiate a contract with the new president, and he or she will take office on July 1, 2007.