LARAMIE -- The University of Wyoming's presidential search committee says it is looking for an intellectual leader with well-developed political skills, possibly from outside the academic arena, as the permanent successor to former President Philip L. Dubois.

People in the UW faculty and alumni, the political field, the State Board of Education and the community college system who were interviewed say the committee is pretty much on the right track.

"I do believe there are people outside the strict academic area that are very well qualified, but I would suspect those people would have strong academic backgrounds anyway," said state Rep. Floyd Esquibel, D-Cheyenne. "You would want to keep your focus on the primary mission, which is academic."

"I personally have never been one who says that you have to have a Ph.D … to run a university," said Keith Cottam, former dean of libraries at the university and retired director of the UW/Casper College Center. Nevertheless, Cottam said, "You have to have someone who understands the intellectual process and the importance of teaching and learning."

UW Trustee Dave Palmerlee of Buffalo, chairman of the search committee, outlined a draft of its leadership statement to the board of trustees at its meeting Friday. Tom Buchanan, who is serving as president during the search period, sat out that part of the meeting because he is a candidate for the permanent appointment.

The draft document says the candidate should possess, among other qualities, integrity, judgment, ability to communicate and listen, intellectual depth, "well developed political skills" and the ability to "serve as the intellectual leader of the university's academic enterprise."

The university's search comes as colleges and universities nationwide look increasingly outside academia when recruiting new presidents, largely because of the need for fundraising expertise.

The board of trustees, in its charge to the search committee, said: "Recognizing that no industry or function has a monopoly on good leadership, we are asking that you cast a broad net to attract the best and brightest individuals from within and outside of the higher education field."

"That is what we are going to do," Palmerlee said in an interview. "We may have nontraditional candidates, we may have several, we may have many. The advertising we have done was placed in three educational journals. We have not advertised in the Wall Street Journal or places like that."

Palmerlee declined to say whether any applications had been received from people in industry, politics or other non-academic fields.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal, in an interview with Wyoming Public Radio before Dubois left his post in June, said, as paraphrased by the public broadcasting network in a news release, that the new president "has to be somebody who obviously has the necessary academic credentials, but what we are really looking for here is a leader."

Different views

Although there was general agreement with the committee's policy statement, there were also differences among those interviewed in the past week.

John Guy of Powell, a retired Marine Corps colonel and past president of the UW Alumni Association, said, "I kind of disagree with some people who say being a president of a university is all about fundraising. I think fundraising is important, but it is also important for a president to get involved with the deans of the colleges and get down there and see what's happening."

Former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson said, "With the amazing demands that are put on any president now, I am amazed that people will apply. You are in politics, you are dealing with the faculty senate, with the student senate, with the alumni -- it's grotesque, and I don't know how they do it."

Simpson said he was approached by a university about being its president after he left the Senate and replied, "I don't ever want to get anywhere near that office."

JoAnne McFarland, president of Central Wyoming College in Riverton, said community colleges also are looking outside academia "in part because of the limited number of academic members interested in college or university presidencies."

While she believed a president "is first and foremost an academic leader," McFarland said "it is possible for academic leaders to gain knowledge of legislative political and business issues" that they would need as president, "just as it is possible for someone outside the academy to have as his or her major interest in such a position the academic progress of the institution."

Lewis Bagby, director of international programs at UW, said, "Much hinges on the capacity of the individual to bring the leadership skills but also to adapt those skills to the peculiarities of educational institutions." Still, Bagby said, "I think bringing someone from outside who isn't familiar with the culture of the academy would mean that person would have a great challenge before him or her to gain that insight."

Bagby also said that the selection of former U.S. Sen. David Boren, D-Okla., as president of the University of Oklahoma had "raised eyebrows and real anxiety among the faculty," but Boren's administration "has been a very good one for the institution as a whole."

Similarly, Michelle Sullivan of Sheridan, a member of the State Board of Education and a graduate of Colorado College, said former Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste had "turned out to be just a remarkable president" for the Colorado Springs school.

Cottam, who was at Vanderbilt University before he came to Wyoming, said that when the school named an industrialist with only a master's degree as president, "There was just a hue and cry about, 'Oh, this is just awful, it's iconoclastic, it's just terrible.'" Yet, he said, "the guy performed marvelously because he understood the nature of the academic culture. I think if you find the right person from outside the academy, it works, and I have seen it work."

Other qualities sought by the search committee include "a high level of commitment and passion" for the UW president's role, a sense of humor, outstanding academic credentials or equivalent professional experience, a record of management or administrative success in complex organizations, understanding of a land grant university's mission, a grasp of the importance and visibility of the president of the state's only four-year higher education school, and good strategic thinking.

"The qualifications discussed … obviously describe a progression of values, experience and characteristics unlikely to found in any single individual," the committee concluded. "These qualifications will however be those against which the candidates will be judged and which will guide the Board of Trustees in its ultimate choice."

Star-Tribune correspondent W. Dale Nelson can be reached at wdnelson@bresnan.net.