Academic leadership searches: evolving best practices

Peter F Buckley^1,2, Donna Dauphinais¹, D Douglas Miller¹, James V Rawson³, Geoffrey Young^1,2, Nikia D Curd¹

1School of Medicine, Dean’s Administrative Staff, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia;²Department of Psychiatry, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia;³Department of Radiology, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia, USA

Abstract: Conducting searches for new leadership at academic institutions is an important, often underappreciated, ongoing institutional commitment. Search committee recruitment strategies and processes have evolved to attain a higher level of consistency and equity in the recruitment of leadership. This trajectory toward ‘Best Practices’ is described herein. Institutional leaders are now exploring alternate models, including variants of centralization of the search process, to address the challenges found in the traditional academic search model. Also described is a unique approach – The Core Operations Administrative Team for Searches (C.O.A.T.S.) – which incorporates ‘Best Practices’ in academic searches, as well as building institutional ‘search capacity’.

Keywords: recruitment, search committee, academic leadership