Urgent search for new Utah Tech president now led by overhauled committee

To avoid “conjecture or concern,” the state has appointed a new search committee to recruit applicants to be the next president of Utah Tech University.

It’s the latest shakeup in what has been a long and messy process to find someone to lead the St. George-based school.

The search started in January 2024, but was put on pause for roughly five months during an investigation into allegations about previous President Richard “Biff” Williams. Several of the candidates and members of the original search committee were then named in a lawsuit regarding the misconduct. And faculty at the school took a rare vote of no confidence against the current leadership.

It’s now been nearly a year without any decision made on who will be appointed to the position.

“This search is about finding a leader who will inspire confidence and collaboration across our campus and community,” said Deven Macdonald in a statement. He who is a member of Utah Tech’s board of trustees and a newly named member and co-chair of the revised search committee.

The Utah Board of Higher Education, which oversees the eight public colleges and universities in the state, announced in an email this week that it was overhauling the previous committee. The decision was not based on “the work of the previous committee — their efforts have been exceptional, and their commitment unquestionable,” the board said.

But with the flurry surrounding the school, the board wanted to move forward with the search with “urgency and integrity” and without “distractions” or worries about whether the group’s pick for a new president could be biased.

The new group will work on an expedited timeline, expected to call for new candidates and then conduct a thorough review of all the names submitted by Jan. 17. There have been a handful of applicants so far — from inside the university, inside the state and out of the state — and those individuals are still in the running. The work of the previous committee isn’t being thrown out.

But the new search committee will vet the applicants and forward three to five finalists on to the Utah Board of Higher Education for the final decision.

That is expected to be made by March. New leadership, the board said, is needed as soon as possible.

Faculty had pushed the board to move faster on an appointment. Utah higher education Commissioner Geoff Landward had visited with professors on campus last month, and they took a second vote of no-confidence — this time in the trustees — while he was there. They said they were worried that an inside candidate connected to the alleged controversy would be appointed, resulting in the same culture at the university.

Landward promised an expedited search.

The search committee previously included Tiffany Wilson, who is the chair of Utah Tech’s board of trustees and was previously a search committee co-chair. Also no longer included is Stacy Schmidt, the assistant director of public relations for Utah Tech.

Both were named in the lawsuit filed in November by three staff members at the school that has since been embroiled by the allegations revealed in the filing.

Also not on the search committee is Julie Chew, the current chair of the school’s Academic Senate, which led the votes of no confidence. She has declined to speak with The Salt Lake Tribune, saying the school has threatened disciplinary action against employees who speak to the media.

The committee, overall, is now 10 members. Before, it was 14.

Danny Ipson, the other co-chair, was previously on the search committee and has remained with the new appointments. He is a member of the Utah System of Higher Education. The search for the next president of Utah Tech, he said in a statement, will be focused on finding someone “deeply committed to advancing the mission and values of Utah Tech University while exemplifying professionalism and ethics.”

That comes after previous President Williams was accused of leaving a gag gift for one of his vice presidents after the man had surgery in November 2023. The present was a zucchini and two eggplants displayed to look like male genitalia, alongside a note.

The president signed the note using the names of the staff members who are now suing — the university’s top attorney, its second-in-command attorney, and its Title IX coordinator, who is tasked with responding to complaints of sexual misconduct.

Those three employees — Becky Broadbent, Jared Rasband and Hazel Sainsbury — say in their federal case that attributing the gift to them felt like payback for their efforts to clean up issues with harassment, misconduct and racism at Utah Tech. They say the school has a toxic culture that stems from its topmost leaders.

That includes Provost Michael Lacourse, who Sainsbury alleges used “racially charged language” against her. She is Black. Lacourse was recently put on leave for three months; he was among the candidates who applied to be the next president. Courtney White, who is serving as the interim president, has thrown his name in as well; the lawsuit says he was complicit in the gag gift situation because he knew that Williams did it after the president allegedly confessed it to him, but White delayed reporting that to the school’s human resources department.

After the gag gift, the three employees say, they faced retaliation for reporting it to the school and the Utah System of Higher Education, which they allege conducted a “sham investigation” that served to protect the president.

The search for a new president was put on hold while that investigation was conducted over about four to five months.

Meanwhile, Williams quietly stepped down two months after he was reported for the misconduct, saying he planned “to pursue other professional opportunities” after a decade at the helm of Utah Tech. He continued to receive pay from the school for six months until he started a new job at Missouri State University this summer.

His new school’s board has supported and defended hiring Williams, despite faculty there also taking a vote of no confidence.