Ohio State not only gives students the opportunity to “Do Something Big,” it also trains its deans for more illustrious positions – at other universities.
Because of OSU’s reputation, many deans have been recruited for more prominent positions such as university presidents, vice presidents, chancellors, creators of new academic programs and even head of the American Red Cross.
Since autumn of 1997 half of OSU’s 24 deans have left their positions at the university, according to a Summary of Position Turnover by the Office of Human Resources and the Office of Academic Affairs. Five of the former deans have become presidents of other universities, two became OSU vice presidents and one was promoted to president of OSU’s Newark Campus. Former Dean Bernadine Healy, who could not be reached for comment, went on to head the American Red Cross.
“Ohio State is a place where people go to look for candidates,” said Dave Ferguson, former associate vice president of University Relations and current associate vice chancellor for Public Relations at the State University of New York. “It earned a reputation in the early 1990s as the birthplace of presidents.”
“OSU is considered such a complicated and complex organization that if a dean can be successful here, then he or she can be successful at a lot of other places as well,” Ferguson said.
“A dean considers many factors when contemplating job offers from other institutions,” said Joseph A. Alutto, dean of the Max. M. Fisher College of Business since 1991. These factors include having the potential to accomplish personal and institutional goals, making a difference in the current position, having the opportunity to develop new skills and having fun.
“This is a good institution where deans have a lot of autonomy, and that’s what keeps us here,” Alutto said.
But the departure of deans takes its toll.
Jason Briggs Cormier, president of the Council of Graduate Students, said a high turnover rate of deans has the potential to hurt the university because deans provide leadership, guidance and vision.
“When deans leave, the focus of the college is being disrupted,” Cormier said.
Provost Ed Ray said there are major challenges in replacing deans who have left for other positions.
“A tremendous amount of effort by many individuals goes into recruiting a new dean for a college and that increases the risk that important matters are not going to be attended to in a timely manner,” Ray said. “(Searches for deans) make substantial demands on the institution while they are in process.”
In Pat Mielke’s article “How the Changing Job Market is Changing the Face of Staff Recruitment,” Mielke said hiring qualified staff in the academic profession and getting them to stay is becoming more and more difficult. Some universities have hired full-time professional recruiters to keep up with high turnover rates.
Chuck Knapp, managing partner of the Higher Education Practice for the personnel recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles, said the skills deans learn at OSU make them very employable, and also very hard to replace.
“People have great experience by the time they leave OSU, including a broad range of administrative responsibilities; successfully managing budgets, fund-raising, revising curriculum, increasing research efforts and managing promotion and tenure programs,” Knapp said.
Deans at OSU, especially in the Colleges of Medicine, Business and Engineering, are almost like a CEO of a company, said former Engineering Dean David B. Ashley. Not all universities give deans that kind of responsibility, and that experience makes them desirable to other universities.
“For four years I had a great position at OSU. I had no intention of leaving, but a one-time opportunity came up,” Ashley said. Ashley is now the executive vice chancellor and provost of the University of California at Merced where he is leading the development of the University of California’s newest campus.
“Given the complexity of (OSU) and the experience that a dean would acquire there, they often go on to positions at other institutions, not planned, just called upon,” said Judith Koroscik, former dean of the College of the Arts. “And in my case I can tell they are given really wonderful offers that they can’t refuse,” she said, referring to her new position as dean of the College of the Arts at the University of Cincinnati.
“Deans leaving for lateral positions at other universities would indicate a problem within OSU, but when a dean is approached to be president it is a compliment to the university,” Knapp said.
“I have worked in central administration for 10 years and I have been genuinely impressed by the quality of the deans, vice provosts, directors and vice presidential colleagues that I have had the good fortune to work with here,” Ray said. “The fact that some of the best of our best and brightest administrative colleagues get tapped for senior positions at the best institutions in the country is pretty clear evidence that, whatever our failings may be, we have a better team at the top than most administrations.”
