Since current Aurora College president Glenda Vardy Dell will be vacating her post as of next September, the search is already underway for a replacement. But there are points of contention over the hiring process and fairness.
One restriction that has rankled some people is that the college presidency is initially only open to existing territorial government or Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission employees.
“Which basically means that any other Northerners outside of government are ineligible to apply for the president position of a post-secondary school, which is incredibly out of the ordinary for these kinds of processes,” said Nicole Redvers, a member of the Deninu Kue First Nation and an associate professor at Western University in London, Ont., who considers the NWT her home.
The job advertisement, which closed on Dec. 8, also fails to include “mention about the importance of an applicant acknowledging or understanding Indigenous values or commitments to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, something that we tend to see automatically in academic hires,” Redvers said.
Additionally, the job was posted for the minimum required two weeks, which Redvers believes could limit the applicant pool, given the complexity of the role and the nature of the job description, which offers compensation in the range of $193,038 to $241,298. The president of an educational institution with a budget surpassing $50 million requires a broad range of skills and experience, she contended.
Redvers also raised concerns about what she perceives as a lack of transparency in the hiring process, with inconsistent messaging from the board chair about whether the college is moving towards independence from government or following GNWT policies and protocols.
Joe Handley, the chair of the board of governors for Aurora College, said if the institution is unable to find suitable candidates within the GNWT or within the college itself, then another job competition will be held, and it would likely be opened up to people outside of the GNWT.
However, Redvers didn’t buy this reasoning, pointing out that if the hiring process is truly under government control, an affirmative action policy with (priority one) P1 and P2 status could be implemented.
Handley said that the decision was made by the executive committee of the Aurora College board of governors, which relies on human resources from the GNWT because the college has not yet established its own human resources department. He added that the GNWT’s human resources division could address concerns about perceptions surrounding a lack of transparency.
“But basically, the ad is out there, everybody can see it, and it’s clear who is qualified and who is not qualified, so that’s available for everybody to see on the website,” said Handley.
He also mentioned that the college is still working toward becoming a polytechnic university with tricalmeral governance, which means there will be three people who share decision-making and responsibility, ostensibly by March 31.
“We don’t want to wait until those structures in place to begin hiring a new president, because that gives us a very short period of time. Our preference is to advertise early and possibly have whoever is successful work with the outgoing president, so there’s a continuous flow of information and thinking from one president (Glenda Vardy Dell) to the next. We certainly don’t want to end up with having someone as an acting president for a month or three months,” he explained.