INDIANOLA — Mississippi Delta Community College faces one of the most important decisions any organization can make: selecting its leader.
The Moorhead-based junior college’s 17-member board presumably reviewed applications for its next president during its meeting Nov. 7 and will interview candidates this month before making an announcement at its December meeting.
I say presumably because our reporter was not allowed to sit in on the public body’s proceedings because it met in a session closed to the public that the board is supposed to represent — and whose tax money it uses to operate.
That’s legal because the state’s Open Meetings Law gives an exemption for discussing personnel matters.
But contrary to what public officials sometimes say, the fact that they can close a meeting doesn’t mean they must.
I harbor a deep loathing for the personnel exemption to the Open Meetings Law. I think public bodies use it to hide things they don’t want getting out that could cast them in a bad light, and they can talk about whatever they want behind closed doors, not necessarily that narrow excuse they used to meet in secret.
So even though not required by law and even though most colleges and universities in Mississippi don’t do it, MDCC’s board should make known the presidential finalists before hiring someone.
That gives faculty, students, alumni and taxpayers the opportunity to give input. If they’re allowed to do that, they’re more likely to support whomever the board hires rather than feeling as if the board pushed someone on them or hired a crony.
And publicly announcing the candidates makes for a much more complete vetting of the potential hires’ backgrounds than what would be done privately by the MDCC board.
I’m not saying the MDCC board’s hiring process won’t produce a good candidate for president, only that opening the doors would give the public confidence that the board hired the best person available.
That is needed at MDCC considering the way Larry Bailey’s 11-year tenure ended earlier this year. An anonymous letter was distributed statewide that claimed to contain secretly recorded conversations between two prominent board members and an administrator during which they plotted to oust him.
I tend to believe those accused by the anonymous letter, called “A Document of Concern,” when they say it was a fabrication.
But even if it was a fake, the school still must address the public perception problem it created.
As an example of the bad things that can happen when a closed hiring process is used, MDCC need only look a few miles down U.S. 82 to Mississippi Valley State University.
The state College Board, which governs Mississippi’s eight public universities but has no oversight over community colleges, hired Donna Oliver in 2008 without announcing her name until she was the only finalist. There was a show of public hearings, but it was clear that the decision had already been made.
The process outraged alumni and other supporters of Interim President Roy Hudson. They held a protest and threatened to form a “human fence” around campus when Oliver visited the first time.
Oliver never seemed to be able to build support from the campus or the community at-large, and her tenure accomplished little. Now Valley’s in the same spot it was four years ago as her contract expires at the end of the year, and the College Board has said it’s not going to renew it.
MDCC has an opportunity to avoid those types of problems.
It should take a progressive stance and show other Mississippi universities and colleges the benefits of an open presidential search.
• Charlie Smith is the editor and publisher of The Enterprise-Tocsin in Indianola. He formerly was news editor at the Commonwealth.
