At its Sept. 15 meeting, Texas State Faculty Senate made suggestions and reviewed Texas State’s faculty, department chair and dean hiring policies with Academic Affairs Associate Provost Debbie Thorne.
While reviewing the hiring process, the Senate gave Thorne feedback on possible revisions. Some of the suggestions concerned the hiring and search committee’s roles in the process. Thorne explained the main concern when the committees’ interview possible employees are if they are making decisions in the best interests of the department and university while keeping information about decisions or interviewees within the committee.
“My hunch is that the search committee actually has the most independence and power here,” Thorne said. ” I think that allowing others to make independent judgments based on their observations and their questions and maybe a public presentation or whatever is done, keeps the independence of the other parties. In other words, there isn’t, and I’m not saying the search committee couldn’t even be trying to influence, but it could appear that way. So, I would kind of keep it within the search because that also could go to confidentiality.”
Thorne explained that confidentiality is a large chunk of the hiring process because if not taken serious, it could effect integrity and sway the interviewees view of the job they are applying for.
“Sometimes information gets leaked out and all of a sudden that search is no longer maintaining the full integrity of it, that it should be maintaining, and you can easily have people feel like that so and so is being devalued or so and so is being overvalued, and a myriad of other responses as soon as you start providing more information,” Thorne said.
A Senate member suggested that the provost, associate provost and in the case of faculty, dean, faculty-chair and the director take on more responsibility by determining how each search is maintained and operated.
Faculty Senate also asked for more context in the hiring process on ways to obtain formal input from candidates brought to campus and who can solicit advice regarding the search committee’s recommendations to chair directors.
Next week the Senate will have members voluntarily attend a face-to-face meeting with campus liaisons during the first half of its weekly Faculty Senate meeting. The meeting with campus liaisons will be for university groups to attend and give insight on what they want in the next university president due to President Denise Trauth retiring in May 2022.