Presidential Search

Dear Members of the Saint Mary's Community:

Earlier this month, the Board of Trustees and the Leadership Team of the Sisters of the Holy Cross Congregation met in Chicago to further engage with our presidential candidates. We are now deeply engaged in additional conversation and anticipate that we have only a few weeks to go in our presidential search process. We are encouraged and energized, and we know that the future of Saint Mary's College will be bright.

While there is no concrete news we can share at this point, we do hope to have an update to you sometime in the coming month. As soon as that happens, we will be back to you.

It has been our honor to serve as chair and co-chair of the presidential search committee. We thank each of you for your support and prayers and ask for your continued support of Saint Mary's as we enter a new chapter in our history.

With best wishes,

Maureen Karnatz Smith ’85
Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Donald Fischer, MD
Vice Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Dear Members of the Saint Mary's Community:

As we move closer to identifying Saint Mary's next president, we want to take some time to say thank you. Thank you to the Search Committee who has given their time and provided thoughtful insight over the last seven months of this search process. We are grateful for their commitment and dedication to Saint Mary's.

We would also like to thank the faculty, staff, students, and trustees who recently joined us in South Bend to participate in interviews with our candidates. They represented the community well, and their feedback has helped guide us to the next stage of our process.

And we also want to thank each member of the Saint Mary's community for your passion, feedback, and support throughout this process.

At this point, the full Board will more deeply engage with our candidates. We remain on schedule for a new president to be announced in early 2020 and ask for your continued prayers as we move into this next stage.

Wishing you all the best for the holiday season,

Maureen Karnatz Smith ’85
Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Donald Fischer, MD
Vice Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Dear Members of the Saint Mary’s Community:

We have shifted into the season of autumn which means that we have also shifted into the next phase of our presidential search!

The presidential search continues to move forward on schedule. The Search Committee spent three days together in Chicago during which we met in person with each candidate on our short list. We think the entire committee would join us in saying that this was an exciting and diverse group of professionals, and we found ourselves impressed and inspired.

The Committee will continue to narrow this group further through December. We look forward to providing the next search update in mid-December.

With best wishes,

Maureen Karnatz Smith ’85
Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Donald Fischer, MD
Vice Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Dear Members of the Saint Mary’s Community:

We have shifted into the season of autumn which means that we have also shifted into the next phase of our presidential search!

The Presidential Search Committee met recently to review candidate applications. As a result of that meeting, the committee has extended invitations to a short list of compelling candidates for in-person interviews. We will be meeting with a group of candidates who come from a wide range of backgrounds and are excited about the possibility of serving as Saint Mary College's next president. The search committee's engagement with the candidates will continue into December as we actively narrow that group down.

We would also like to notify you of a shift in leadership of the Presidential Search Committee. Dr. Donald Fischer, member of the Board of Trustees, will now serve as the Vice Chair of the committee. Patricia Purcell will continue to serve as a member of the search committee. We want to thank Patricia for all of her work as Vice Chair and for her continued service to the search committee.

With best wishes,

Maureen Karnatz Smith ’85
Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Donald Fischer, MD
Vice Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Dear Members of the Saint Mary’s Community:

As students return to campus, we are reminded why this search matters so much!

The recruitment of Saint Mary's next president continues to gain momentum, and we are pleased to report that we remain on schedule for a new president to be announced in early 2020.

Our search consultants at WittKieffer have used the summer to reach out to a host of education leaders to talk about the exciting future of Saint Mary's and asking them to think about who might be the right leader for the College. These conversations have led to calls and meetings with strong potential candidates. We have been gratified to hear about the fruits of these recruiting conversations and believe the search committee will have an outstanding group of candidates to review.

Thank you for your continued support of this search and of Saint Mary's College!

Maureen Karnatz Smith ’85
Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Patricia Wiedner Purcell ’69
Vice Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Dear Members of the Saint Mary’s Community:

It is hard to believe that the month of August is upon us and soon students will arrive on campus to begin the academic year!

Our presidential search is moving forward on schedule and our consultants at WittKieffer have been reaching out to potential candidates. As you’ll recall, in July we shared with you our presidential leadership profile which provides an in-depth description of the College and our ideal president. We encourage you to review the document if you have not already.

Thanks to many of you we have received over 100 nominations of candidates and our consultant team has reached out to them. They are also actively recruiting additional qualified candidates for the role. If you have nominations, please send them to SMCPresident@wittkieffer.com so that our consultant team may include them in the process.

Please continue to visit the presidential search website for information on the search process as well as an archive of prior email communications that have been sent.

With best wishes,

Maureen Karnatz Smith ’85
Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Patricia Wiedner Purcell ’69
Vice Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Dear Members of the Saint Mary’s Community,

We are pleased to share with you the leadership profile for the search for the 14^th president of the College. This document reflects the collective voices of our community, describes the ideal candidate, and summarizes the priorities for the next president.

The leadership profile can be found on our presidential search website. Please feel free to share it with your networks. We welcome any candidate nominations you may have. Those can be sent to our search consultants at SMCPresident@wittkieffer.com. As we move through the search process, please continue to provide feedback through the presidential search survey.

Best wishes for a wonderful summer!

Sincerely,

Maureen Karnatz Smith ’85
Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Patricia Wiedner Purcell ’69
Vice Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Dear Members of the Saint Mary’s Community:

A big thank you to each of you who took the time to complete the presidential search survey. We heard from over 200 members of the Saint Mary's community through the survey, and your feedback is invaluable as we search for our next president.

We also heard from those who had questions about the "hybrid" approach for the presidential search. While we do understand that there are those who are disappointed with this decision, we feel strongly that this approach will develop the strongest pool of candidates for Saint Mary's. While not every person who wishes to will have the chance to interact with the finalists candidates, the input from the representatives who do meet with the candidates will be shared with the Board and taken into consideration during our deliberations.

One of the next steps in the process is the development of the leadership profile. This document will outline the priorities for the next president as well as the professional qualifications and personal qualities the president should have. That document will be available mid-July and will be shared via email and posted on the presidential search website.

As we go into summer months, we hope that you plan to take some time to relax and spend time with friends and family.

With best wishes,

Maureen Karnatz Smith ’85
Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Patricia Wiedner Purcell ’69
Vice Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Dear Members of the Saint Mary’s Community:

We are pleased to announce the launch of our presidential search website. Regular updates on the search process will be provided on this website and via email.

Important in this process are the voices of our students, parents, faculty and staff members, alumnae, and friends of the College. We invite you to offer your thoughts about the qualities that are important in our next President through this brief survey, which will be used to assist in developing the profile of the next President.

The search for Saint Mary’s next President will be conducted using a Hybrid Approach. A detailed explanation of this approach can be found on the presidential search website. In summary, a hybrid approach means that a select number of representatives of the institution will participate in the final interviews and provide input to the Board. These representatives will sign a confidentiality agreement. The reason this is important is that it makes candidates who do not want to be publicly interviewed for fear of losing their current positions comfortable with the application process. We believe the hybrid approach will yield more applicants.

We look forward to serving as your search chairs and supporting Saint Mary's during this exciting time at the College.

Sincerely,

Maureen Karnatz Smith ’85
Chair, Presidential Search Committee

Patricia Wiedner Purcell ’69
Vice Chair, Presidential Search Committee

This is still under discussion and is meant to provide representation for all groups including faculty, students, staff, and alumnae. The process will likely either involve a special election or will bring the previously elected/appointed representatives of the constituencies into play — the Academic Leadership, the Alumnae Association Board of Directors, officers of the various student government organizations, etc.

The search committee has a responsibility to ensure that candidate privacy is as well protected as possible. We must rely on our constituencies to honor their commitments to confidentiality. Our expectation is that representatives will understand what is potentially at stake for the candidates and for us, will live up to their covenants and will not share information. Most importantly, our consultants at WittKieffer tell us that candidates with higher education backgrounds are familiar with the traditional methodology and understand that the Hybrid Approach is a compromise accommodation. They are almost invariably willing to take that much of a chance, the theory being that 50 people have a better chance of keeping a secret than 500 people.

There are several factors, but the two most important are likely 1) the immediate availability of information on the internet and 2) the size of the financial transactions in which leaders are now typically involved. There used to be local news, but now everything can be known everywhere in real time. Candidates are no longer able to show up someplace without their home institutions knowing that they have. Also, higher education leaders are now often engaged in negotiations — especially principal gifts or sophisticated financial transactions subject to bond ratings, etc. — that can be severely compromised by a lack of faith in that leader's commitment to their current institution.

Any candidate will come into this search knowing that they have competition. Humble people will recognize there is a chance that that they will interview and not be offered the position. Asking candidates to risk their current livelihood or to subject their families to upheaval with no guarantee may deter even the most dedicated individuals. Perhaps there are applicants who will come from low risk positions who will be willing to participate in a fully open search. People in jeopardy, however, not only will not show up for an open public visit but will not even apply — will not even investigate the institution and the opportunity — if there is no possibility of doing so in confidence.

Our consultants at WittKieffer have undertaken this methodology with great success for several years. In fact, it is now the predominant approach in their searches for private institutions, and public institutions are increasingly working to make it possible for them as well.