Public forums?
There are finalists for the position of dean of the College of Health Professions.
But the university has made only marginal
effort to reveal their names to the public.
Tuesday's forum for John Bonaguro, the first candidate, was announced Monday to Central Michigan Life via a nondescript e-mailed list of upcoming events. This provided little time for media outlets to report any advance notification.
The CMU events calendar Web site, events.cmich.edu, never included notice of the forum, even though it supposedly was public. As of Tuesday evening, the CMU News Web site, news.cmich.edu, had not as much as posted a short press release on the finalists.
Faculty and staff were sent an e-mail Monday on the CMU Today listserv, notifying them of the Bonaguro's visit. This is not enough. It is short-notice for faculty, and it provides no notice for anyone not on the listserv - students and community members.
So how was the public supposed to know about the forum or the finalists?
Open forums are supposed to be just that: open. They provide a chance for the public to meet and evaluate candidates whose roles could crucially affect the university. The forums are valuable.
But the forums' purpose is negated if the public has little way to learn about them. Similarly, the public deserves time to research the finalists; providing only a day's notice cuts this time short.
There is, of course, no massive conspiracy within the university.
It is in part an enormous public relations flop, as the department failed to notify the public of a significant forum. Public Relations and Marketing needs to look carefully at where it went wrong. The main page of cmich.edu should have included information on the candidate as soon as his forum was scheduled, and the events calendar should have been updated.
Announcing a finalist for a dean position is big news. It should be communicated as such.
Beyond public relations, university officials - particularly those on search committees - need to strive toward announcing earlier the names of finalists.
Scheduling conflicts understandably will prevent announcing forum dates far ahead of time, but names can be made public as soon as they have been selected. Those interested in attending will benefit both from knowing whom to research and from anticipating an upcoming forum.
This is not an unreasonable intrusion of privacy. Accepting a finalist position is enough for the university to announce one's candidacy. There is little about which to complain - being a finalist carries responsibility. If candidates do not want to be in the spotlight, then they should not apply.
The university should never again so badly bungle a major finalist's visit to campus. We only hope administrators learn from the experience.
