As required in the SUNY Search Guidelines, a search firm was selected to assist in the presidential search process. The College Council had the option to forego a full RFP process and instead hire a firm to provide a limited set of recruiting services, thus creating cost savings for the campus.
SUNY Maritime retained RPA, Inc. to assist with the presidential search. RPA Inc. is a nationally recognized comprehensive executive search and consulting firm, founded in 1988. With over three decades of service to higher education, the firm has established a record of success in recruitment and search facilitation across all levels of senior administration. RPA Inc. is dedicated to the philosophy that a recruitment effort is an opportunity to positively impact the future of an institution. The firm’s guiding objective is to develop a full understanding of each institution it serves and to identify and seek out professionals whose skill sets, values, and personal characteristics most closely match the needs and values of the institution. RPA also brings deep experience with searches in the SUNY system. The RPA team is led by Dana John Cohick, president of RPA Inc.
The search firm will work with the search committee and the Zulaika Rodriguez, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Presidential Searches in the Chancellor’s office to develop the job description, the required and preferred qualifications for the position, as well as the campus prospectus that describes the college, including its current strengths, opportunities, and challenges and information about the SUNY system. The firm then places advertisements and conducts active outreach nationally to recruit a large, talented and diverse pool of qualified candidates to be considered by the committee.
Once the search committee selects the semi-finalists, the Chancellor’s office will conduct extensive background interviews on pre-qualified applicants in order to find the best candidates to serve the college and its needs.
The search committee will review the pool and their materials and ultimately select 8–12 candidates who will be interviewed virtually. From this group, five finalists will be selected and invited to campus to interview with a variety of stakeholder groups.
The Chancellor’s Office will work with the search committee to conduct extensive background checks and references on all finalists.
The finalists are evaluated and all acceptable candidates are presented, with evaluations from the search committee, first to the College Council, and then upon approval of the College Council, to the Chancellor. At least three acceptable finalist candidates are presented to the Chancellor. The names of the finalist candidates are sent to the Chancellor unranked—hence leaving the ultimate decision to the Chancellor.
