In Search of a New Leader

By Carole C. Huxley

The task of the Presidential Search Committee ended February 16 with the pealing of the bells from Mary Lyon Hall which summoned the campus community to meet the next president of Mount Holyoke College. The committee's journey to that moment began during a couple of muggy days in July with an acute awareness of the importance of our charge as well as an uncertainty of how to achieve it. Our assets included a remarkable alumnae network and campus community dedicated to the College; a collective determination to do whatever it took to ensure the best outcome; and a strong committee, every member of which was prepared to devote the hundreds of hours needed for the task. The members included Barbara M. Rossotti, chair of the Board of Trustees; Margaret Woodbury, president of the Alumnae Association; five additional trustees--Linda Yu Bien, Raymond F. Burke, Jill K. Conway, Herbert W. Jarvis, and myself as committee chair--faculty members elected by their peers, Harriet Pollatsek, Penny Gill, and Robert Shilkret; staff member Rochelle Calhoun; and students Ashanta Evans '95, president of the Student Government Association, and Christine Roch '96, president of the Junior Class. Jan Dragon, on loan from the treasurer's office, was the indispensable coordinator of the search.

The important part of our first meeting was the opportunity to get to know each other and learn to understand the different and valid perspectives we each brought to the table. Happily, throughout the entire process, members gave and received thoughtful consideration to all views expressed, and no conversations left the room.

By the end of two days, we had worked our way to a preliminary consensus on College priorities and had sketched out a search process. We decided that we wanted a professional consultant to help us, but that the committee would remain actively in charge of all phases of the process. Our choice, made in August after a subcommittee's thorough investigation, was Christine Young of the Academic Search Consultation Service. We also decided that we wanted full discussions with members of the Mount Holyoke community about the major priorities for the College in the next five to ten years, and what qualities they, therefore, hoped to see in the next president.

We refined our plans in August and drafted letters soliciting nominations. In September we held an extensive series of meetings with alumnae, trustees, faculty, staff, and students and, as a result, revised our statement of priorities for the College and criteria for the new president. That statement accompanied some 35,000 letters seeking nominations from a wide variety of sources, including 24,500 alumnae, 6,000 parents and friends, 1,300 major supporters of the College, 270 former and current trustees, 220 college presidents, foundation executives and association heads, and 3,000 students, faculty, and staff. At the same time, advertisements inviting nominations appeared in appropriate publications. Almost 400 people responded, putting forward the names of over 300 different individuals. In October and beyond, we followed up on each nomination, and talked with others who might be outstanding candidates but who had not put themselves forward. As nominees turned into candidates, seven members of the committee became the preliminary readers of all candidates' credentials, while the full committee read those judged viable by the preliminary readers.

The holiday season was a blur for committee members. In early December we met, narrowed the pool of candidates, called them, and began the extensive process of contacting references. We then met again and reviewed reference calls. In both our deliberations and our calls, we referred to the presidential criteria and College priorities as the bases for our discussions, as well as to issues related to the review of individual candidates' credentials. Before we were through, members of the committee had called a total of 120 people for reference interviews, with calls typically lasting from forty-five minutes to one hour. In addition, Christine Young, the consultant, made many additional calls and checks on our behalf.

By the time we met in early January with the individuals we had chosen for preliminary interviews, we were eager to talk with them. Three days in the library at the Commonwealth Avenue Harvard Club in Boston were marked by engrossing discussions and an abominable heating system. We then narrowed the pool to a few candidates for additional interviews. With their promise that a room less prone to chills and fever would be provided, the Harvard Club was again the site for our next meeting with these candidates. By this point, we had conducted even more extensive reference calls and spent several hours with each candidate. Barbara Rossotti, chair of the Board of Trustees, met with each of these candidates in a separate meeting as well.

As we worked our way to our final recommendation, we realized how privileged we had been to meet and to learn from these individuals of distinguished achievement and strong character. We were enlightened by their views of Mount Holyoke and enriched by their thinking about the College's future.

We had looked for an outstanding and articulate person, one who embraced the challenge to sustain academic excellence and realize students' potential in a liberal arts institution for women. We had sought a planner, a team builder, and a constructor of community--in all of its diverse parts--who could turn vision into goals and goals into accomplishments. We had listened for sophisticated comprehension of the fiscal issues facing private liberal arts institutions in general and Mount Holyoke in particular. We were alert to creative thinking in regard to giving the College a greater presence and a zest for raising funds. We probed for eagerness to tap the enormous resource the alumnae represent for the College's future.

When we finished our review, we were certain that we had found the leader we had been charged to secure in Joanne V. Creighton. It was appropriate that the youngest member of our committee, Christine Roch '96, proposed the motion that would take the College into the future and recommend to the Board of Trustees the College's seventeenth president. The vote in favor of Dr. Creighton was immediate, unanimous, and enthusiastic.

The feeling of the entire committee is best expressed by our other student member, Ashanta Evan '95, "I am honored to have been a part of the search process. Ms. Creighton was a wonderful candidate; I felt that we should have her here; and I am overjoyed and thankful that she has accepted. She will help us define who we are and bring the College into the twenty-first century."

Carole C. Huxley, a member of the Board of Trustees, was the chair of the Presidential Search Committee.