Shell Knox had worked closely with Charles Knapp and was vitally interested in who would succeed him. She had wanted to be on the search committee but heard through others that Leebern didn’t want her.
Over a period of five months and under a veil of secrecy, the search committee reduced the list of candidates to fourteen. The list included eleven men and three women; in accordance with state law, their names were not publicly released. Shell Knox, meanwhile, was following the process closely from the sidelines. Early in the search she was encouraged, she said. A friend on the search committee would call and say it’s unbelievable how many people are interested in the job. But as the process wore on, the friend reported a “shift in focus.” Adams was “in the mix,” Knox was told, and she was warned that Adams probably wouldn’t be her personal choice to succeed Knapp.
A round of interviews with the finalists was scheduled for May 1997 at the Hilton Hotel near the Atlanta airport. By then it seemed clear that Adams was a controversial front-runner. On paper, Adams may have been the unlikeliest of the candidates. As president of a small private college in Kentucky, he had no experience at a research university, let alone a flagship school like UGA. His record as president of tiny Centre College for nine years was solid but unspectacular. Before that he had been vice president for university affairs and professor of political communication at Pepperdine University, a Church of Christ school in Malibu, California. His academic resume was thin, but his credentials in fundraising and national politics had evidently earned him an inside track in the UGA search with some influential Regents, notably Leebern. Countering that was an equal lack of support from the UGA faculty representatives. Committee chairwoman and business professor Betty Whitten was reportedly unimpressed with Adams’s background and warned the other committee members that he would “never be accepted” by the UGA faculty.
Whitten, who has since retired from Georgia, has steadfastly declined requests for interviews about Adams. Others familiar with the process say she believed he was the weakest candidate and thus scheduled his interview first. But when she arrived at the Hilton for the start of the interviews, she was told that Adams had a personal conflict and couldn’t arrive in Atlanta until later. His interview was rescheduled for last.
Meanwhile, the committee had prepared a standard list of questions so the candidates’ answers could be compared and assessed later. When Adams finally arrived and his interview began, it was apparent that someone had fed him the questions or at least had discussed with him the other candidates’ answers. His response to the very first question was, “I understand there’s been a lot of discussion about that in the last few days.” Whitten has also told people that when Adams submitted his expense report for the trip to Atlanta, which she had to sign as chair of the search committee, it showed he had been in Georgia for the entire time of the interviews.
Adams’s academic credentials were of little concern to others on the search committee. They were looking for a CEO-type who knew how to wield his authority and preferred to apologize rather than seek permission. They stressed Adams’s intellect, his vision, and especially his political acumen and ability to connect with ordinary Georgians. Seiler said Adams was an impressive candidate. He had spent a day driving around the Athens campus before his interview, which impressed the committee. Although a native of Alabama, Adams grew up mostly in Georgia, which also helped his standing. Parties to the interview process say Adams was a great salesman of himself. He had a way of answering questions that made the questioner feel that he agreed with them, even when he didn’t give the answer they wanted.
The necessity for academic standing apparently had been replaced by something more important—political skill and fundraising ability. The old days of the bookish college president, it seemed, were over.
At the close of the Hilton interviews, the search committee narrowed the finalists to five “officially unranked” and still publicly anonymous candidates. These five names were submitted to a special Regents subcommittee chaired by Leebern, which cut two more from the list and submitted a shortlist of three finalists to the full Board of Regents. In June 1997, the Regents released the names of the three finalists. They were James Machen, vice president for academic affairs at the University of Michigan (now president of the University of Florida); Debra W. Stewart, vice provost and dean of the graduate school at North Carolina State University (now president of the Council of Graduate Schools); and Michael Adams, president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.
The final result was a foregone conclusion, according to insiders. Many of those interviewed for this book believe that Leebern had hand-picked Adams from the beginning. Leebern was by all accounts the most influential person on the search committee and he has remained one of Adams’s staunchest backers throughout the subsequent controversies. Seiler acknowledged that Leebern played a pivotal role in Adams’s hiring. “He’s Leebern’s kind of guy,” Seiler said. “I don’t think anybody would have been hired without Don’s blessing.”
Others quickly fell into line. Chancellor Stephen Portch, nearing retirement, gushed that Adams was a “perfect fit” for UGA. Portch praised the members of the Board of Regents, all appointed by Democrat governors, for choosing a partisan Republican to head the University of Georgia. Portch had insisted throughout the search that he wanted a president who would be as much at home in the onion fields of Vidalia as in the classrooms in Athens. He evidently felt that Adams was the complete package—intelligent yet down-to-earth and practical.
Governor Zell Miller praised Adams’s “real world” political experience. Lieutenant Governor Pierre Howard drew on undisclosed information to proclaim that the Regents’ choice of Adams demonstrated their dedication to classroom excellence.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution observed that faculty and students were “taken aback” by the appointment due to reservations that a candidate from a school more similar to Georgia in size and stature had not been chosen. But the newspaper opined that the size doesn’t matter when picking a university president. Adams brought unique qualities to the job, the newspaper said, noting his fundraising abilities and Centre College’s traditional high ranking among small teaching colleges.
Even Betty Whitten seemed to have overcome her misgivings. When rumors of Adams’s impending appointment began circulating several days before the official University System Board of Regents announcement on June 11, 1997, she stated that he would “do a great job.”
3
The twenty-first president of the University of Georgia made his first official appearance in Athens on June 26, 1997. Regent Donald Leebern, who some said had personally steered Adams through the selection process, sent his private airplane to Danville, Kentucky, on June 25 to fetch Adams’s wife, Mary, and sons David and Taylor to join Dr. Adams in Atlanta. The boys were delivered to their grandparents’ home in Stone Mountain, and Dr. and Mrs. Adams were driven to the home of Chancellor and Mrs. Stephen Portch to spend the night. Early the next morning, Dr. and Mrs. Adams, Chancellor Portch, and Leebern rode together to Athens. At precisely 9:45 a.m., holding hands like newlyweds, Mike and Mary Adams walked under the University Arch on the old North Campus while the Red Coat band played “Glory, Glory to Old Georgia.”
“How’re you doin’? I’m Mike Adams,” the newly minted president said to a group of students. He was, according to news accounts, an instant hit with faculty and students. It is safe to say at that point the curious onlookers knew virtually nothing about him.
Born