Presidential search process benefits from community input

As the University heads into the spring semester, the search for Baylor’s 15th president has achieved great momentum. Based on feedback from a series of external and internal listening sessions hosted during the fall, the Presidential Search Committee is utilizing a “composite sketch” of the professional and personal characteristics and experiences integral to the University’s next president in identifying potential candidates. Additionally, the Committee is now benefitting from strategic guidance by executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles.

Although a definitive deadline for presenting candidates to the Board of Regents has not been established, the Search Committee anticipates a busy spring.

“Academic institutions prefer to have a president in office in the May to July time frame to give the person time to settle into the position prior to the beginning of the academic year, but the Baylor Presidential Search Committee is operating on God’s timeline,” said Bob Brewton, BBA ’74, of Houston, chair of the Search Committee and president and principal owner of Brewton Investment Corp. “When we feel we have found the candidate that God has intended for our great University, then that is the timeline we will operate under.”

The search officially began in early September with the appointment of the Presidential Search Committee, which also includes vice chair Andrea L. Dixon, PhD, The Frank M. and Floy Smith Holloway Endowed Professor in Marketing and executive director of the Center for Professional Selling and Keller Center for Research in Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business. Representing faculty, staff, administration, students, alumni and the Board of Regents, the search committee includes ten other members: alumni Drayton McLane Jr., BBA ’58, chairman of the McLane Group, Richard B. Welday, BBA ’90, president of AT&T AdWorks, and Kathy Wills Wright, BSEd ’85, MSEd ’88; faculty/staff members Dr. Bill Neilson, associate dean of the Honors College, Dr. Kevin P. Jackson, vice president for student life, and Marjorie Ellis, executive director of Career and Professional Development; regents Robert E. Beauchamp, William S. Simon and Dr. Dennis R. Wiles; and current student Jonathan Siktberg.

The Search Committee has benefited greatly from the guidance of Heidrick & Struggles, which specializes in chief executive and senior-level assignments, to engage candidates in the search process. One of the first executive search firms in the United States, Heidrick & Struggles has grown to have global impact in every major industry including higher education. A hallmark of the firm’s approach is the partnership the Heidrick & Struggles team builds with clients.

“We are pleased that Heidrick & Struggles used the listening sessions report as they developed the president’s position description,” said vice chair Dixon. “Our on-campus colleagues—faculty, staff, administrative leaders and students—articulated what they want to see in our new president, and the position description clearly incorporates their thinking.”

According to Cheryl Gochis, vice president for Human Resources and chief Human Resources officer at Baylor, Heidrick & Struggles has a proven track record for assisting in the selection of leaders who are skillful managers and exceptional relationship-builders and visionaries.

“Heidrick & Struggles knows that colleges and universities require strategic leadership and fresh approaches to sustain and advance their goals,” she said. “They maintain strong relationships with key executives, education thought-leaders and a network of diverse candidates both inside and outside academia that will be helpful to the search for Baylor’s next president.”

Ellen Brown Landers, a principal at Heidrick & Struggles and a member of its Education, Nonprofit and Social Enterprise Practice, said the firm is excited to be working with the Search Committee and the entire Baylor community.

“The input from the listening sessions with participation from so many Baylor constituencies is particularly helpful in providing important feedback to guide us in the selection process for Baylor’s next president as we move forward,” she said.

More information and updates on the presidential
search process are available at
baylor.edu/president/search.