The leader of the University of Colorado’s Faculty Council retreated Thursday from a proposal to suspend the presidential search and stick with interim president Hank Brown.
Rod Muth didn’t even present his idea to the 39-member council, which voted instead to remind regents not to stray from a search that involves all levels of the campus community.
Faculty were outraged last spring when regents appointed Brown to take over for the resigning Betsy Hoffman without campus input. A 12-member committee that includes administrators, professors and a student is searching for CU’s permanent president.
A month ago, Muth told regents the $300,000 presidential search is a charade that will end up with Brown as president. He criticized regents for excluding faculty in the past but said they should save money by postponing the presidential search.
He suggested resuming the search after Brown, 65, announces how long he would stay.
Muth said Thursday that he knew within a couple of days that he’d made a mistake. The e-mails and phone calls from fellow professors started immediately, most of them negative.
“They rattled my cage and said, ‘You spoke out of turn, and we want to go ahead with the search,”‘ he said. “I apologized to my colleagues for not consulting them.”
Professors said it’s not that they don’t like Brown, it’s that the campus community deserves a say in the search.
“There is a tremendous amount of appreciation and respect for the job Hank Brown is doing,” law professor Barbara Bintliff said. “This is a shared- governance issue. The regents, the faculty, the administration just need to be reminded on occasion of the principles of shared governance.”
The Boulder Faculty Assembly voted last month against suspending the search.
Faculty at the Health Sciences Center also want the search to proceed and plan to tell their representative on the search committee to request as much time and money as it takes to get the right candidate, said Health Sciences Center professor Dennis Lezotte.
“We shouldn’t skimp,” he said. “It’s so important right now given our current status and public relations.”
Muth said the resolution passed by the council, which includes faculty from all four CU campuses, is a message to regents saying: “Don’t do it again. Shape up and fly right.”
“It’s about paying respect to history and precedent,” he said. “It’s not about Hank Brown. It never has been about Hank Brown.”
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-820-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
