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Frawley |
The University of Mary Washington hired William Frawley as its leader after a seemingly thorough presidential search.
The process was led by a consultant with more than 200 college presidential and chancellor searches on his resume.
A 12-member search committee held four meetings, reviewed applications and interviewed 11 finalists.
Despite these efforts, the search was a failure. Ten months into his job, Frawley was fired after being charged with drunken driving twice in two days.
The search firm used by UMW, Korn/Ferry International, validated the finalists' resumes and checked out financial issues and traffic violations. It was referred to as a "360-degree check," which included a criminal background investigation.
The company, however, never uncovered a potentially telling part of Frawley's past that happened while he was a linguistics professor at the University of Delaware.
About 20 years ago, the Wilmington News-Journal in Delaware ran a brief story about the arrest of 33-year-old William J. Frawley.
He was wielding a large knife and threatening to kill a passer-by, the newspaper reported. He was charged with carrying a concealed deadly weapon.
The charge was dropped shortly after the incident, according to court records in Delaware. That's why it didn't show up on the background check, a search expert said.
Additional details about the charge were not available. Frawley has not returned repeated calls for comment.
Mona Albertine, who chaired the search committee, said she didn't know about the Delaware arrest until being told by The Free Lance-Star.
"I think I would question it" during an interview, said Albertine, a member of UMW's board of visitors. "I would want to know more."
Korn/Ferry had "indicated the importance of search engines such as Google in finding out about candidates," according to the minutes of an October 2005 meeting.
A Google search done by The Free Lance-Star shortly after Frawley's local arrests turned up a reference to the charge against him in Delaware.
Shelly Storbeck of Storbeck/Pimentel and Associates, which specializes in college-level searches, said she sometimes hires private investigators to look into candidates. Often, she said, they're retired FBI agents.
UMW didn't use a private investigator.
Korn/Ferry's John Kuhnle, who works in Washington and guided UMW through the process, did not return a phone call or an e-mail.
UMW chose Korn/Ferry over 10 other firms and paid $75,000 plus travel costs and other expenses. Most firms use outside agencies to conduct criminal background checks, search experts said.
The Delaware incident would not have necessarily disqualified Frawley from the job, said Jean Dowdall, a search expert who has written columns for the Chronicle of Higher Education.
"These things sometimes happen," she said. "Things happen to people that make them come unglued."
UMW Rector Bill Poole said he was disappointed that he didn't know about Frawley's Delaware charge.
But "we have nothing to be ashamed of," he said. The search "was done right. Certainly, we will do it the same way again."
He said he's not sure if they'll use Korn/Ferry. The Washington-based firm recruited Frawley, who was then dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at George Washington University.
UMW professor David Kolar, a member of the search committee who learned of the Delaware incident from a reporter, said it seemed "totally out of character."
That's what officials said about Frawley's recent arrests in Fairfax County and Fredericksburg. He's scheduled to appear in court May 16 in Fairfax and July 19 in Fredericksburg.
For each finalist, Albertine said, they talked with about eight people who knew them, some of whom weren't listed on the candidates' resumes. This is more important than the actual interviews with candidates themselves, Kuhnle said at a meeting.
References offered constructive criticism on every candidate, Albertine said, but nobody indicated that Frawley had behaved erratically.
Search firms and committees should both make calls to references, Storbeck said.
UMW relied on Korn/Ferry to check references, Albertine said. Professors outside of the committee did call their own sources to ask about the finalists.
Committees can ask candidates almost anything, Dowdall said, with the exception of protected categories such as religious affiliation and health issues.
"It's often very difficult for people to say bad things about their colleagues," she said. "They usually find ways to signal" a problem.
For instance, she said, a reference might say a candidate had more fun at parties than others.
At the end of the yearlong search, each of the three finalists visited UMW's campuses for two days.
After Frawley's on-campus appearances, faculty and students gave him the highest marks in seven of eight categories, including "compelling vision of the university's future."
The board of visitors hired him just days after the third finalist visited Fredericksburg.
"I don't feel we could've known what was going to happen based on the information I had," Kolar said.
With Frawley gone, the board of visitors must start the search process again. They plan to discuss it at a July retreat.
In the meantime, Vice President Richard Hurley will serve as acting president.
Staff librarian Craig Schulin contributed to this story.
Jeff Branscome: 540/374-5402William Frawley was among three finalists to replace William Anderson as president of the University of Mary Washington. The others were Risa Palm, then executive vice chancellor and provost at Louisiana State University, and Karen Gould, then dean of McMicken College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Cincinnati. Palm has since been named provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs with the State University of New York. Gould is now provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at California State University at Long Beach.
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