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B-CU names finalists for president, stirs more controversy

T.S. Jarmusz
The Daytona Beach News-Journal
Bethune-Cookman University's newly installed board chair Belvin Perry, left, is criticizing the school's search for a new president even as he continues to support his friend and longtime colleague Hubert Grimes to remain in his role as interim president. "The ship needs to be righted before we hand this thing over,” Perry said. [News-Journal File/Nigel Cook]

Bethune-Cookman University has named three finalists in its search for a seventh president, but the candidates' arrival for job interviews on campus this week won’t be without controversy.

Rocked by a threat to its accreditation, a myriad of lawsuits, soaring debt and plummeting credit ratings, student protests and ongoing fights for control of the administration and board of trustees, a smooth transition at the historically black university was never going to be easy.

[READ: B-CU trustees remove Michelle Carter-Scott from leadership post]

Now newly installed B-CU board chair Belvin Perry has criticized the search, arguing that the university's search committee didn't reveal the names of the finalists until last week, leaving not enough time for a thorough vetting.

Members of the university’s National Alumni Association allege they are being shut out of the process to such an extent that it could be grounds for a lawsuit.

And reports show even the firm conducting the search has come under fire in the past year from at least three universities it worked for.

As for the candidates, none of the finalists — drawn from a pool of more than 60 applicants — has been a college president. One is a vice president at a community college. Another is apparently between jobs. A third is on his way out from his current position after professors criticized their treatment at the business college where he is dean.

It may not matter. Perry, a retired circuit judge, continues to make the case that interim President Hubert Grimes — a longtime friend and fellow retired judge — remain in the position while B-CU works through its many issues.

“In my estimation, the ship needs to be righted before we hand this thing over,” Perry said. “It will take someone a year to figure out what’s going on. We don’t have a year to wait.”

On-campus visits began Monday, according to a B-CU search committee document. B-CU’s board set a February deadline to vote on a new president in hopes that the leader could be in place well before a looming April deadline when the university is due to report on its progress toward removing a probationary sanction levied against it by a regional accrediting body.

[READ: B-CU slapped with probation; Hubert Grimes blames media, lawsuits]

It’s unclear if that will be possible.

Search firm scrutinized

The Washington, D.C.-based firm B-CU hired to find a new president, AGB Search, bills itself as “the leader in higher education search.” Not all of its former clients would agree, according to published reports.

Among the list of candidates AGB provided for the University of Guam was a man who left another institution after just 11 months amid allegations he created “an environment of fear and retaliation.” The same candidate also left another school after sexual harassment charges were leveled against him, the Guam Daily Post reported in May.

Stakeholders at Boise State University criticized their search as “rushed” and gave AGB weak marks for submitting subpar candidates. The State Board of Education voted to extend the search and hired a new search firm, according to a May report from the Idaho Statesman.

Issues of transparency plagued a search at Suffolk University in Boston. Matters grew worse when it was uncovered that AGB had recommended one of its own clients as a finalist, the Suffolk Journal reported in April. Afterwards, a board member resigned and trustees hired an outside firm to investigate a whistle-blower complaint regarding the search.

AGB and B-CU did not respond to requests for interviews. AGB’s website says it has conducted more than 500 successful searches.

The candidates

The three finalists are Elric “Brent” Chrite, Alan D. Robertson, and Marcia Conston.

Documents provided by the search firm identify Chrite as dean of the University of Denver’s College of Business since 2014. He announced in August that he would be leaving the position in June, according to published reports.

His announcement came a little more than two weeks after 14 former or current professors at the college alleged mistreatment, discrimination, and a hostile workplace, with one professor filing a lawsuit against the university, according to Denver alternative weekly Westword.

Though Chrite was in charge of the business college, the allegations weren’t directed at him specifically. The university told Westword that his departure was not tied to the claims. Chrite could not be reached for comment.

The biographical information on Robertson said he was senior vice president of business and finance at Atlanta’s Morehouse College since 2013. It also says he served as vice president of finance and administration at Chicago’s Prairie State College during the same time frame.

He no longer works for either school. A Morehouse employee said Robertson hadn’t worked there since last year. An employee at Prairie State said Robertson hadn’t worked there in roughly a year. Robertson could not be reached for comment.

Conston’s write-up shows her as vice president for enrollment and student services at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, N.C. The document says she has “22 years of executive level higher education administration experience.”

She could not be reached for comment.

The infighting

Perry took over leadership of B-CU’s board this month following a vote to remove Michelle Carter-Scott, who’d served as chair for about a year and tried on a number of occasions to remove Grimes as interim president.

The timetable for the search had been set by the board under Carter-Scott’s leadership. Perry said getting the names of the finalists so late in the process doesn't allow enough time to know “everything humanly possible about the potential next president.”

Given that the university is facing a looming deadline regarding its regional probation and is contending with a host of lawsuits concerning a costly student housing project that it won’t be able to pay for, Perry said the stakes for getting the search done right couldn’t be higher.

“We’ve got to get this right," said Perry, who said this month that he and Grimes met twice with the FBI as part of its investigation into B-CU's problems. “There will be no do-overs.”

[READ: B-CU sues former president Edison Jackson over dorm deal]

B-CU’s National Alumni Association agrees with the importance of the search but not with the board's approach. NAA President Robert Delancy wrote in a letter to trustee Wayne Davis, the co-chair of B-CU’s search committee, that the board has limited the NAA's involvement in the search to an “unprecedented” level, leaving its partnership with B-CU at a “historic low."

Delancy raised the specter of a lawsuit in his letter, alleging the board's shutting it out has “unnecessarily created another avenue for students and parents to bring a cause of action against the university for negligence.”

Because of what he deemed “red flag issues” with the search firm and the “possible lack of sufficient vetting,” Delancy wrote that he was choosing to distance the alumni association from the search, fearing that backing it could lead to legal action.

He concluded his letter with a statement at odds with the direction Perry is trying to take the board, saying the “NAA unquestionably believes that the university must select a new and permanent president — along with a new Board of Trustees.”