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With three presidents behind them and a financial crisis before them, UT board members are gearing up for another national search to find a University of Tennessee leader with staying power.
Some officials say that, this time, the board may need to find someone closer to home who knows the ins and out of UT's unique system.
"There has been an ego issue in the past," said UT interim President Jan Simek. "We are looking for someone who has a heart for the institution. We are looking for connections and understanding. There are folks out there that aspire to a position, not a place."
By the time UT lands a new president, the state's leading higher education system will have changed hands four times in the past 10 years.
Dr. Simek, who has said he doesn't want the job and prefers to return to teaching anthropology at UT, stepped into the system's top post in March 2009 when five-year president John Petersen abruptly resigned in the wake of tough budget talks and tangles with the board over his wife's criticism of some UT donors.
One of the policies that UT board members said Friday they're going to review is the role of the president's spouse role in university operations.
In 2001, UT President J. Wade Gilley was forced to resign after the board investigated him for hiring a women with falsified credentials with whom he had a romantic relationship.
In 2003, John W. Shumaker resigned after an audit revealed that he spent $80,000 on his university credit card and $493,000 renovating his campus home. The audit detailed 18 personal trips that Dr. Shumaker took on university money, including a $6,000 trip to Greece.
Despite encouragement from Dr. Simek since August, the board has dragged its heels in filling UT's top post. Board members said they've waited because, until the Legislature's special session on education in January, they didn't know how Gov. Phil Bredesen's higher education reforms would shake out.
There had been talk among state leaders of merging the UT and Tennessee Board of Regents system since TBR Chancellor Charles Manning had announced his retirement.
"There was outright fear in some quarters as to what (higher education legislation) meant for UT," Dr. Simek said in an address to trustees. "There was a possibility that higher education would be radically restructured under a single system."
A committee will be appointed to search for a new UT president in the board's June meeting. In July, the search committee will bid out a consulting firm to assist in the search. A new president should be hired by the end of October this year, documents show.
The board's search comes at a crucial time for the system and the state, said Rich Rhoda, executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.
Leading education think tanks and nonprofits, including the Bill and Melinda Gates and Lumina foundations, are keeping a close eye on Tennessee and the UT system as they work to improve graduation rates and implement sweeping changes recently mandated by the Tennessee Legislature.
"(The national spotlight) will attract a very large, deep candidacy because Tennessee is on the national radar," said Dr. Rhoda.
Still, UT board Vice Chairman Jim Murphy said there are roadblocks to drawing the best applicants. Many top candidates with high-profile positions will not apply for the UT job because Tennessee's open records law requires a search that is open to the public, unlike other states, he said.
"The experts say it means you don't get sitting presidents to apply," said Mr. Murphy. "These are the most competent people."
To deal with that stipulation, the board is shortening the period when the finalists are announced from five weeks to two weeks.
"The challenge is making sure we get good people in the pool," Mr. Murphy said. "We have to do all our activities in a very public setting. A lot of the candidates we would like to attract don't want to have their names be made public."
One big name for the job is already being thrown around -- Gov. Bredesen. Mr. Murphy has said he has asked the governor, who has shown an obvious interest in higher education, to take the job as UT president when his term ends.
"The governor has indicated that he is not interested," said Mr. Murphy. "I have asked."