Regents Hire Search Firm, Begin Building Candidate Pool to Fill Chancellor Position
May 5, 2006 | Written by Sheila Allee
The Texas Tech University System Board of Regents has hired the executive search firm of Korn/Ferry International and has begun the work of assembling a pool of candidates to consider in filling the position of chancellor.
The five-member Chancellor Search Committee, comprising three regents and two members of the Texas Tech Foundation Board of Directors, held an organizational meeting Thursday with its search firm consultant and with an 18-member Advisory Committee representing a number of Texas Tech constituencies. Their first action will be to solicit nominations and seek candidates, a process expected to take several months.
“We are casting a wide net in our search for the best possible person to lead the Texas Tech University System,” said Frank Miller, a regent from Dallas and chairman of the Chancellor Search Committee. “Contrary to recent speculation, we are starting with a clean slate and have no particular individuals already on a candidate list.”
Miller said advertisements will be placed in higher education journals, information will be posted on the Texas Tech University System website and on other websites, and direct mail invitations to make nominations will be sent to Texas Tech alumni, friends and supporters. Members of the Advisory Committee, representing faculty, staff, students, alumni, the business community and administration, will be asked to provide nominations as well.
The search committees will be working with R. William Funk, Korn/Ferry International’s leading consultant in higher education executive placements. Funk, who is based in Dallas, has been called “the guru of higher education recruiting” by The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Serving on the Chancellor Search Committee along with Miller are regents Bob Black of Horseshoe Bay and Windy Sitton of Lubbock and two members of the Texas Tech Foundation Board of Directors, Jerry Turner of Austin and Robert Brown of El Paso.