USC took heat for lack of diversity in 2019 presidential search. Is this one better?
The last time the University of South Carolina chose a president, the school’s leadership landed in hot water for a lack of diversity among finalists and the committee charged with reviewing candidates.
Critics of the 2019 presidential search argued the lack of diverse candidates — none of the four finalists in the search were women — was in part the result of a lack of diversity on the search committee.
While it will take months for USC to have a list of presidential finalists, USC has already put together a search committee that has more racial, gender and professional diversity than in 2019.
“We’re proud that the composition of this presidential search committee is the most inclusive in the university’s history,” USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said in an email.
“Our university community is very diverse, so it’s important that the search committee reflects that reality,” Stensland said.
In 2019, 10 of the 13 members or advisers to the search committee were white, two were Black and one was Hispanic, according to an archived USC webpage. Only two of the search committee members or advisers were women. Only one person on the search committee represented campuses other than Columbia. Five of the members or advisers were lawyers, two were business executives, one banker, one student and one doctor. Of the three professors, one taught in public health, another computer science and the other taught modern languages.
In 2021, 15 of the 21 members or advisers on the search committee are white, five are Black and one is Iranian. Seven are women. Four committee members represent campuses other than Columbia.
Despite having more members, the new search committee actually has fewer attorneys, four, than in 2019. Other professions included in the search committee are seven teaching faculty members, three business executives, two bankers, two USC non-teaching staff members, a former basketball star, a student and a doctor. Among that group are six professors who teach history, English, computer science, psychology, communications, women’s and gender studies and education.
Both committees had one immigrant: 2019’s was Marco Valtorta (Italy) and 2021’s is Hossein Haj-Hariri (Iran). Three members of the 2019 search committee, Leah Moody, Eugene Warr and C. Dorn Smith, also are members of the 2021 search committee.
Numerically speaking, the biggest differences between the 2019 and 2021 presidential search committees is the number of faculty included, the number of USC campuses included and a larger group of non-voting advisers.
The makeup of the search committee is directed by a combination of choice from the board of trustees and established policy that names ex officio members. For example, USC’s student body president is automatically a voting member of the presidential search committee, even though the student body president doesn’t have a vote in full board matters.
After the messy 2019 presidential search process, USC’s board of trustees rewrote its policies for choosing a search committee. Those new rules included adding the head of the faculty senates at Aiken, Upstate, Beaufort and Palmetto College to voting positions on the search committee.
“The new policy provides greater representation — in terms of both raw numbers and proportion — for faculty while also ensuring that all system institutions are represented on the search committee,” Stensland said.
The board of trustees does have latitude to decide which of its own members — so long as they weren’t appointed to the board by the governor — serve on the search committee, which of those members chairs the committee and who to appoint as official advisers.
Boosting the number of advisers on the search committee, which increased racial diversity on the search committee, was also done to add more voices — such as alumni, local business owners, fundraisers — on the search committee, Stensland said.
“All of these factors enable a wider set of voices to be heard within the committee,” Stensland said.