UVa will launch nationwide search for new president

When you’ve had only seven presidents in 106 years, finding the right person for the job could take a little time and a lot of effort.

New Feature

Sign up for our Daily Newsletter e-mailed to your computer at 8 a.m. Monday through Friday.

Click here

University of Virginia leaders likely will use consultants, committees and a lot of Internet bandwidth tracking down a replacement for President John T. Casteen III, who will step down Aug. 1, 2010, after serving 20 years in the post.

Exactly how the search will be implemented and who will be involved is to be decided by UVa’s new rector, John O. Wynne, of Virginia Beach. Wynne will take office July 1.

“Things won’t really get started until after that,“ said Carol Wood, assistant vice president of public affairs for UVa. “There will definitely be a search committee, but who will be on the committee will be determined by the new rector and the Board of Visitors.“

Wynne could not be reached for comment.

Robert M. O’Neil served five years as UVa’s president before stepping down in 1990 to be replaced by Casteen. He said the search likely will span the nation, but could also look closer to home.

“It’s difficult to determine exactly what they may be looking for,“ said O’Neil, now president of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. “When they approached me, they were definitely looking for an outsider, someone who had few connections to Virginia. When they chose Mr. Casteen, they chose someone who was, in many respects, an outsider, but who also had connections to the university.“

O’Neil said he finds it difficult to predict what the Board of Visitors will seek in a candidate, whether outsider or insider, academic or businessperson, liberal arts, sciences or law background.

Of the seven former presidents, one has been a law professor, one a lawyer and former state governor, two have been English professors, one was a physicist, one an engineering professor, and one was an elementary educator who rose through the primary education ranks to become a university president.

Five of the seven presidents - John L. Newcomb, Colgate W. Darden Jr., Edgar F. Shannon, Frank L. Hereford Jr. and Casteen - have had strong connections to Virginia’s higher education system. Edwin A. Alderman and O’Neil had no previous experience in Virginia.

When the university hired O’Neil, it was after a national search that stretched to the University of Wisconsin system that O’Neil headed. The initial search was conducted through a Texas consultant, but the Board of Visitors was involved heavily, he said.

Members of a board subcommittee met with him in Madison. He later was invited to a meeting in Washington with more members of the committee and then to Charlottesville to talk with the board. The news of his candidacy and his hiring was kept confidential throughout the process, he said.

“That was a most extraordinary thing, the absolute confidentiality of the initial process,“ O’Neil recalled. “No one in Wisconsin was aware that I was being considered until the day that the Board of Visitors made the public vote to appoint me. That is something that is invaluable to a candidate, especially those that are not chosen, because it keeps relationships even with a current employer.“

O’Neil served as UVa’s president for five years before resigning and joining the faculty. He retired from teaching two years ago.

Casteen will stay on as a consultant for a year after his retirement to help with the fundraising campaign’s final stretch and to assist with the switch to a new administration. He also will be given the title of president emeritus.

Unlike most universities and colleges, UVa doesn’t have much experience hunting for new leadership. Officials say the national average for a college president to serve one school is a little more than five years, but Casteen served the university for 20.

His longevity is not rare at UVa. Since Alderman became the university’s first president in 1904 - prior to that the rector and Board of Visitors managed UVa - presidents have served an average of about 15 years.

“There are advantages to that kind of tenure. There is a sense of continuity when you have one person in such an important position for that long,“ Wood said.

Casteen may be proof. He has had historic impact on the institution Thomas Jefferson conceived in 1800 and opened in 1819. Under Casteen’s watch, the university instituted a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies for nontraditional students - those who have full-time jobs and/or families and attend evening classes.

UVa also instituted a financial aid program; undertook two ambitious fundraising campaigns; restructured hiring, construction and fundraising practices to give the university more autonomy and freedom from state personnel policies; and created the university’s first new school in five decades, the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

The efforts have succeeded in bolstering UVa’s national standing: Only the University of California-Berkeley has a higher ranking among public universities.

Casteen is also one of the highest paid presidents of public universities. He receives $487,000 in base salary, less than half of which comes from state money. The rest comes from private funds.

“There are a lot of factors involved in deciding the next president and I’m sure the Board of Visitors will be discussing those in depth,“ O’Neil said. “The University of Virginia presidency is an esteemed position in American academia and there will be no shortage of qualified candidates who are interested.“

Casteen’s retirement, and the search for his replacement, will have one ancillary effect personally for O’Neil.

“I do look forward to the time when I am no longer known as the only living former president of the University of Virginia,“ he laughed.