Finding Herbst’s successor

I n searching for the next University of Connecticut president, the Board of Trustees would do well to find candidates with records of pushing academic achievement, raising donations, forming good relationships with students, and finding ways to operate more efficiently. That’s not too much to ask, is it? UConn President Susan Herbst, the first woman to lead our state’s flagship university, recently announced her intention to retire when her contract expires at the end of June 2019.

There is much for which Herbst deserves credit. Since her hiring in 2010, UConn’s ranking among public research universities has risen from 26 to 18. The university increased the size of the faculty, with an emphasis on the science, technology, engineering and math fields.

Under Herbst’s direction, the university made a major commitment to bioscience. And with the support Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, the UConn president oversaw a largescale rejuvenation of the Storrs campus.

A new campus opened in Hartford and the Stamford campus was expanded to include student housing. Herbst said she will return to the classroom to teach political science at the Stamford campus.

One knock on the UConn president is that she did not forge a strong student relationship. This is in part a product of the growing commitment university presidents must make to attracting donations. During her tenure, UConn’s endowment grew from $272 million to $422 million. The donations have helped close budgetary gaps when state funding slowed. When it was announced in 2014 that Herbst would be getting a series of pay raises, boosting her salary to $831,000 by 2019, also announced was that the UConn Foundation would kick in $300,000.

A low point for Herbst came in 2013 when a group of young women claimed that UConn officials had failed to adequately pursue their complaints of sexual misconduct. Herbst dismissed the claims as absurd.

“The suggestion that the University of Connecticut, as an institution, would somehow be indifferent or dismissive of any report of sexual assault is misguided and demonstrably untrue. I am stunned that I even have to say it,” said the UConn president.

Nine months later the university announced it had agreed to a $1.3 million settlement with five current and former students who had made the complaints.

To her credit, Herbst’s administration also took several steps to try to reduce sexual violence and improve the university’s response to complaints.

The next president needs to take a hard look at administrative costs. In 2013, the Wall Street Journal found UConn had among the highest costs for administration among the nation’s public research universities.

This month, a state audit found several fiscal and labor violations at the UConn Health Center.

Herbst has given the trustees plenty of time to search for her successor. They’ll need it.