Perils of secrecy

The notion of keeping secret the process of selecting a new leader for a public institution is just wrong. The next chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will have to be comfortable doing business in public, because that is the nature of taxpayer-supported universities, or taxpayer-supported entities of any kind. It's perfectly reasonable to expect that, once the search committee for the new chancellor has narrowed its choices to finalists, the public would get a look at them before the final choice was made.

The inclination of the search committee at UNC-Chapel Hill, led by businessman Nelson Schwab, former trustee chairman, is to keep things quiet until the selection is a done deal. But that is misguided on several counts.

First, announcing the names of finalists offers an extra chance to vet them -- might there be information the search committee doesn't know? It also builds confidence in the final choice because he or she has met the constituents who would be served. Openness isn't just the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do.

Secrecy is convenient for the professional "head-hunters" who receive handsome fees for collecting candidates for the jobs. The head-hunters likely want confidentiality not just because it's more comfortable, but also because, what if some candidates on their lists were under review by more than one institution?

And what about this theory that good candidates won't apply if their names are to be released before the process is complete? Ridiculous, because first, people who are courted by other campuses certainly find ways to let that be known on the campuses where they serve, and second, the fact that someone was under consideration to become chancellor at highly regarded UNC-Chapel Hill would be a point of pride to him or her.

The trustees' search committee isn't picking the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It can and it should go public with the names of its preferred candidates. And UNC system President Erskine Bowles, who will make the final choice from perhaps three names submitted to him, should release those names if the committee will not.