Input to the WPI Presidential Search Committee

I thought I’d take a few moments and provide some thoughts to the WPI Presidential Search Committee as they continue their work on this most important effort. For perspective, much of my life has revolved around WPI – I attended, my wife attended, we were both Commissioned into the military through WPI ROTC programs, and my son, Ronan, recently died by suicide on the campus. The photo of this post was taken last October during Parent’s Weekend. Our specific oyster dinner that night is one of the fondest memories I have of Ronan and the photo is probably the last I have of the two of us together. I recall when we drove into Boston that day, we parked at the US Coast Guard Station at the North End. We could see the USS Constitution across the harbor where, as a little boy, Ronan helped to raise an American flag. Now, our lifetime of dreams for Ronan are gone, but our dreams for the rest of WPI’s children remain, as well as our dreams for America. Ronan’s mental health challenges were not specifically related to WPI but help to inform my broader experiences regarding the current challenges our country faces in mental health and higher education. It’s our ambition to promote Ronan’s positive legacy any way we can, and helping to ensure WPI gets the right President going forward, is a great way to continue to honor his life.

For additional transparency, I should disclose up front I immediately voiced my interest in January in becoming a member of the Search Committee to the outgoing President and Chairman of the Board of Trustees. I was told to expect follow up, but since it’s now March and there hasn’t been any, I feel opportunities for my input to be heard, understood, and incorporated are fleeting. I decided to write this because I love WPI and am concerned with its future direction. It's intended only to provide constructive input. I wanted to be on the record with where I think WPI needs to go with this selection process, and not let WPI’s lack of engagement with me silence (whether intentional or not) my thoughts and perspective. To the Search Committee, I respectfully submit the following for consideration:

• WPI is in a crisis and turnaround situation. It takes a special and dynamic leader, with experience in these types of situations, to understand how to make considerable progress in a short period of time. I submit the Committee shouldn’t look for a typical university President – but rather a candidate that is ready to focus internally, heal and repair the community.
• The chosen candidate must place students, and their well-being and mental health, at the absolute top of their priority list. As such, the chosen candidate must have deep practical experience in this area.
• After students, the next priority is the faculty. The next President needs to be able to work effectively with the faculty to understand and address their needs.
• Of course, many of the typical attributes in a search like this need to be considered; innovation, strategic vision, cross functional leadership, teamwork, and technical excellence. And, certain attributes are mandatory; honesty, integrity, and transparency.
• Going further, the Search Committee must only consider candidates that have a bias toward embracing the acceptance of diverse ideas and perspectives over the increasingly typical higher education mentality of exclusion of debate and homogeneity of acceptable thoughts. College should be a time of exploration and formation, not a test of compliance and conformity.
• I highly recommend candidates be pursued from inside the rolls of WPI alumnus. Given all the above, it would be helpful for the chosen leader to have a thriving transformative WPI legacy as an instrumental component of their heart – not a transitory addition to a resume. I also recommend candidates be aggressively sought from outside of academia, to broaden the array of potential choices. Ultimately, in this profound time of crisis, we need to move quickly away from the status quo and toward a new path forward.
• Finally, I’d be remiss if I neglected to mention Covid, which has had such a detrimental effect on the higher education community. I highly recommend the Search Committee select a leader who showed a propensity to defer to actual science instead of convenient paths of least resistance or political expediency. WPI is a science-based institution, but with respect to its most recent Covid-19 policies, has shown itself scientifically lacking. At the beginning of Covid, with all the uncertainty, it was understandable to take a conservative approach. But after more than 18 months of observation and data, and during the outbreak of Omicron, WPI failed to adjust course, and many other colleges followed suit. The science pointed toward the ineffectiveness of masks, the questionable effectiveness of boosters, the robustness of WPI’s younger population against infection, and the substantial harm remote learning (and other related policies) had on student mental health. In November, I personally communicated many of these perspectives directly to the Administration. With all the scientific evidence, instead of easing and removing restrictions, WPI doubled down. No candidates for WPI President, in my humble opinion, should be considered who similarly discarded the mounting piles of scientific evidence in their prior roles. The well-being of our students is just too important.

It’s a tough mix, but the right candidate can be found if the Search Committee looks in the right places. In its efforts, the Search Committee must run a transparent process, from selection of a diverse group of Search Committee members, to the explicit publishing of the names of members and agreed upon search criteria, to a published segmentation of candidates (#, academia versus private sector, WPI alum or not, highest level of education, etc.), to the provision of regular updates on deadlines and progress. It would also be helpful to publish explicit guidelines on how candidates can be nominated or how they can submit their own applications or indications of interest. This may have already been done, but if so, it’s not been easy to locate. Right now, from my perspective, I don’t believe the process has been transparent, and any opaqueness will immediately call into question the legitimacy or appropriateness of any selected candidate. We owe it to the next President to ensure they start off on the best footing possible. We owe it even more to our treasured students and faculty.

I wish you well in your process. The entire WPI community, and our collective path forward, rests heavily on your important work. Be transparent, put students first and choose wisely.