Selection of New Pacific University President Sparks Controversy in Hiring Process

Faculty and students at Pacific are discontent with the hiring process behind the incoming university president Jennifer Coyle. 

“In a typical search, there are open forums where faculty and staff can raise questions and articulate concerns. Such meetings are not merely interviews; they are the beginning of a relationship with the incoming leader. It’s a shame the process was short-circuited in this case,” said Dr. Ellen Margolis, Professor of Applied Theater at Pacific.

The university community learned of the new hire in an email on Feb. 9, but no open forums were held for all campus faculty, staff, or students to meet potential candidates. The current Pacific University president Lesley Hallick announced her retirement in September 2021. 

Coyle is a Pacific alumnus, former professor, and the former dean of optometry at Pacific. Pacific faculty said they were overall content with the decision to hire Coyle, but the hiring process was not up to their expectations.

“We don’t want to complain about who you chose, that’s not the issue,” said Michael Geraci, Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities The issue is we want to be included in these things. It’s a big deal to hire a president of the university.” 

The university’s Board of Trustees was in charge of the hiring process and is not required to involve anyone that is not on the search committee, which is chosen by the trustees. Typically, Pacific University allows the Pacific community to be a part of the process by keeping candidate searches open. However, for this search, the committee chose to keep it closed. 

According to those on the committee – which included trustees, undergraduate, and graduate faculty, student representation, and an alumni representative – Coyle was involved in another university presidential search that was required to be confidential, and this prompted the Pacific job search to be confidential as well. This also led to the process being accelerated to prevent the loss of Coyle as a candidate. 

According to Cassie Warman, Vice President of University Advancement, these confidential higher administration hiring searches are becoming more common at universities across the country.

“The firm that was hired to do the search, they told the committee what they are seeing across the country is a change.” Warman said in an interview.

Jim Moore, director of the Tom McCall Center for Civic Engagement and undergraduate faculty representative on the search committee echoed similar sentiments.

“More and more candidates are asking for secrecy about their candidacies, and the reason is pretty simple,” Moore said. “They work somewhere and they don’t want people there to freak out or start acting differently if they know whoever they are working with is looking for a new job.”

However, many faculty members were dissatisfied with the search process as many felt they did not have the input they were accustomed to and were concerned about the lack of transparency. There was also concern around the lack of diversity within the candidate pool.

“So we don’t want to detract from the fact that she actually probably is going to be a fabulous president,” said Geraci. “But wouldn’t it have been nice to have a pool of candidates, hopefully with people of color in it, that we could all meet and have some say in who our next president would be?” 

Chemistry professor David Cordes said this search was unacceptable and the faculty will be taking steps to ensure this type of search does not happen again, emphasizing the importance of community input. 

“I think it’s also troublesome to faculty that in doing a secret search, we are transmitting, we are communicating our values and saying that we don’t value openness and transparency,” Cordes said. “Instead we value secrecy, and unfortunately I think that’s also reflected in the candidates we look at,”  

In contrast, those that were involved in the search committee and selection process were satisfied with the steps taken. Coyle was interviewed multiple times by the search committee as well as interviewed with the University Counsel. 

“In terms of process, I think the process was good,” said Moore. “The process ticked every box you would expect any presidential candidate to go through.” 

The faculty themselves had not met any candidates during the search but were under the impression that this would be an open search as it had been in previous years. They did not know that the search process had been completed until the selection of Coyle was announced in an email sent to all faculty.

“Many people found this very insulting, patronizing, demoralizing, condescending, there are a number of words you can apply to our faculty impressions about this search,” said Cordes, “Again, there is a lot of support for Dr. Coyle, as our incoming president but this search process did not reflect well on Pacific University.”

Several faculty have put forward a language of the resolution that would go to the Board of Trustees. This resolution advocates for a return to open searches, including opportunities for the campus community to engage with potential candidates for higher administration positions.

Dr. Coyle will be hosting a town hall at the end of March to address the concerns faculty may have with the way the search process was conducted. 

We will be continuing coverage of this story as it develops. — Jazmine Henning and Emily Rutkowski