This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 25, 2013: Leading the search for the new president of Saint Louis University, Jim Smith is focusing on lots of facets of the school’s operations – finances, academics, the climate on campus and the importance of its Jesuit mission.
But he isn’t too concerned about SLU’s drop in rankings by U.S. News & World Report – down to 101st in the most recent listing.
After all, Smith told the Beacon in an interview this week, “My company does those ratings.”
That’s not to suggest that Smith, who will soon be retiring from Ipsos, the marketing, media and public affairs company, plans to rig the numbers. It’s just that he knows how the system works, and he knows what the next SLU president can do, in the short and long term, to bolster the school’s standing and the public perception it brings.
Taking such a broad look at how the university operates and the wide range of skills and priorities its next chief executive will need is a big part of Smith’s job as chair of the 11-member search committee named by the SLU board of trustees last month.
A detailed job description is being finalized for approval by the trustees this weekend. Then it will be published in higher education publications and distributed among other possible sources for the best presidential candidates. Once names come in, the committee will winnow the list for the full board to consider finalists after the first of the year, The eventual choice is expected to be in place by July 1.
Smith and the search firm chosen by his committee, AGB Search, have been meeting with groups on campus and soliciting advice on what qualities members of the SLU community want to see in the person who succeeds the Rev. Lawrence Biondi, who stepped down Sept. 1 after serving as president since 1987.
The list is long, Smith said, but the process has been important, given the tension between faculty and student groups and Biondi that hung over the campus for more than a year.
“I think for some people it was a catharsis,” Smith said of the many sessions held to gather views on what the new president should emphasize.
Beyond the different skills that he or she must have, Smith said, one theme that emerged was the need to be able to put ill feelings in the past and concentrate on moving the university forward as its 200th birthday approaches in 2018.
“This is not about standing in place,” Smith said. “It’s about making significant progress. It’s not about pushing it from behind but getting out in front and leading it.”
He added: “The new president really has to pull the university together.”
Wide range of opinions
After a business career with companies such as ConAgra and Procter & Gamble, Smith came to St. Louis in 2000 to try to untangle difficulties ensnaring a company called Aurora Foods. He said the firm had been sued by shareholders and the government and he worked to settle things as best he could.
“Before Enron,” Smith said, “there was Aurora Foods. We had more of a mess than you can imagine.”
After a negotiated settlement, the company was sold off brand by brand, and Smith said he didn’t want to stay any longer. But when he was looking for a local law firm to handle Aurora’s affairs, he got to know Ken Teasdale at Armstrong Teasdale, who was on the board at SLU. Teasdale suggested he meet with Biondi, and before he knew it, Smith had an offer to join the university’s board.
Since then, he has been active on committees such as academic affairs, student development and audits. Once he agreed to chair the search committee, he began to study what he said were books, binders and bags of material on best practices for finding a new head for the campus, material that had been assembled by Biondi and by Joe Adorjan, chair of the SLU board.
From that material, Smith said he came away with the idea for an 11-member committee – an odd number to prevent a tie vote – with a majority of the seats going to trustees, because it is their job to select the president. Of the five seats left, four went to faculty members and a dean, representing various units of the university, and the remaining seat went to a student.
Still, he said, he wanted all other groups, including staff members, who are not represented on the search committee, to feel they had a say. So he has been actively soliciting opinions about what’s right at SLU, what needs fixing and what the next president should bring to the job.
“The most important thing,” he said of the various constituencies he has met with, “is that they had the opportunity to contribute.”
One of the strongest themes that emerged, Smith said, was that the new president does not have to come from a declining pool of Jesuits but has to have a strong belief in the school’s Jesuit mission of service.
“This was not a case of ‘maybe it should be a Jesuit,” he said. “It was ‘over our dead bodies are we going to walk away from the Jesuit mission and tradition.’ ”
He also was surprised to hear an overarching view that the new president had to be a good business person, to be able to manage the university’s budget and endowment and be a strong fund raiser.
“I had expected to hear that from everybody on the board,” Smith said, “but we got it universally, from everybody.”
Finances are one strength the new president will be able to build on, he said. He noted that SLU’s billion-dollar endowment will never rival that of Harvard or other Ivy League schools, but it puts the university in a solid position to build for the future.
And as far as those U.S. News ratings? Smith said he’d like to see SLU move up to about 75th place, and as someone who knows how the system works, he thinks the university can gain some points by some quick fixes.
Smaller class sizes will help, he said, and so will more aggressive solicitation for donations. He notes that schools are ranked depending on what percentage of their alumni give.
“If you just ask someone for a dollar or $5 for a year,” Smith said, “you can dramatically change some of those things.”
Candidates’ names will remain secret
Once the search committee work has progressed, Smith said it is important that each member interviews each candidate on the short list. Whether those talks come individually or in small groups, he isn’t yet sure.
But one thing he is emphatic about: Though the search process has been open and transparent, in terms of who is doing what when, names of the candidates will not be released as they move through the process.
Presidential searches differ in how they handle that kind of question, but those in charge of the SLU search have said that they do not want to handicap possible contenders who may not want their current employers to know of their interest in the SLU job.
Jane Turner, head of the SLU Faculty Senate, said last week that once the list has been narrowed to finalists, she would want them to come to campus so various groups could get to know them, and vice versa.
Smith ruled such a possibility out, saying: “It will not work that way. Categorically, I can say it will not work that way.”
He explained that “if you have a sitting president and that name gets out, you can just imagine what that person’s board will do.”
Asked to react to Smith’s stance, Turner said via email that “I defer to Jim on this matter as he is the chair of the committee.”
Similarly, Smith said that though he wanted to make sure that the committee included members from a variety of sectors on campus, once the group begins meeting, he does not want individuals to be reporting back to their various colleagues what has transpired.
“Once people join the search committee,” he said, “they no longer represent a group. They are working for the university.”
Though it’s important for groups like the faculty to have their feelings known, Smith said, “1,400 people can’t vote on the new president. It’s just not possible.”
What input will Biondi have on who might succeed him?
Smith answered quickly, “none at all.”
“I sat down with him,” he added, “and we had a very clear understanding and it came from him. He said, ‘I don’t want to be involved.’”
But the president emeritus did express the same wish that others had.
“He said, ‘Don’t forget the Jesuit mission,’” Smith said. “’Pick a leader.’ That was it.”
Once the list is narrowed down, though, Smith says he may try to get Biondi’s opinion, if not directly, than by going through Jesuit channels.
“I’d be crazy not to talk with somebody like him,” he said.
In the end, Smith said he expects the search committee will present three names to the board for consideration – and not just three names, but three names in order of the committee’s preference.
And if the eventual choice comes across the way Biondi did more than 25 years ago, Smith will be happy.
He recalls talking with William “Bucky” Bush, who was instrumental in the selection of Biondi, and how there was no doubt that they had found the right person for the job.
“It was obvious that Larry really wanted it,” Smith said. “He was really passionate. In the end, Bucky said there was no contest.”