UMaine System chancellor calls for review of active employment searches and policies governing them

The chancellor of the University of Maine System has requested all of its active employment searches to be identified and reviewed to make sure they are being “managed with integrity” and that search committee members are able to access all relevant information about candidates before making hiring recommendations.

Chancellor Dannel Malloy also called for a review of the university system’s policies on how searches are conducted, in a statement released Friday.

The decision comes just days after University of Maine at Augusta faculty senate voted no confidence in the chancellor and the search that resulted in hiring Michael Laliberte as the campus’ new president on Wednesday.

News reports revealed that Malloy and Sven Bartholomew, a trustee who led the UMA presidential search committee, did not disclose to the full committee that Laliberte had been subject to votes of no confidence at his former university. The UMA faculty senate deemed this information “critical” for the committee to have known.

Malloy said moving forward, he will propose changes to the searches for University of Maine System presidents and provosts to require candidates to disclose whether they were subject to a no confidence vote at any time in their career.

In his statement Friday, Malloy called for the leaders of pending employment searches within the university system to, by May 18, identify which searches are being supported by outside consultants.

The consulting firm Storbeck Search facilitated the UMA search, and faculty referenced the company’s history of ethics violations at other universities in declaring no confidence in the search.

Malloy charged Chief Human Resource Officer Loretta Shields with reviewing the university system’s employment search policies.

Shields will have 30 days to report on her findings and recommend whether or not changes “should be made to any policies to ensure the University of Maine System applies and is following best practices regarding employment searches and that all relevant information about applicants for employment is available to be carefully considered,” Malloy wrote.

According to Malloy’s statement, he announced the review to university presidents and system leaders on Thursday via email and said “it is critically important that our employment searches are managed with integrity” and that relevant information is vetted and considered.

“This is true whether or not the search is led, supported, or facilitated by an outside vendor retained by UMS for that purpose,” he added.

Malloy specifically referenced that the review of candidates and potential policy improvements are to “correct problems that surfaced in the recently concluded University of Maine at Augusta presidential search.”

The University of Maine System trustees released a statement Thursday night that it acknowledges the Augusta faculty’s votes of no confidence and considers them of “utmost urgency and importance to the integrity of the University of Maine System and its universities.”

Friday’s news release did not say how many active searches there are in the University of Maine System currently, or how many are using an outside search committee, however, on Monday the new University of Southern Maine president will be revealed in a ceremony at 1 p.m. Academic Search, a Washington, D.C.-based firm, facilitated that search. Storbeck Search has assisted the university system with at least four searches over the last four years.

The University of Maine System paid Storbeck Search $431,069 for those four searches, including $70,000 for the UMA search that resulted in hiring Laliberte.