NASHVILLE – Some members of the Tennessee Board of Regents acknowledged today they could have improved the process they used to select Deputy Gov. John Morgan as their new chancellor.
But the result probably would have remained the same, they added.
“Perhaps maybe we should have interviewed the other candidates,” Regent John Farris told the GOP-controlled Senate Education Committee, which is looking into Morgan’s appointment as head of the nation’s sixth-largest higher education system.
However, he said that while Morgan, a former state comptroller, was the only one among the six applicants interviewed, “I don’t know if it would have changed the results. But for appearance, it might have looked better.”
Regent Howard Roddy of Chattanooga agreed.
“I would share your concern with that, too, that that would have helped the process,” Roddy told Chairman Dolores Gresham. “That’s the reason you have a search process. If you hire an internal candidate, it gives that candidate credibility, that you’ve looked at other individuals.”
For complete details, see tomorrow’s Times Free Press.