Student and faculty frustrations over the presidential selection process at Chicago State University boiled over today when a lunchtime question-and-answer session devolved several times into a shouting match.

While only about 30 students initially turned out for the session, the crowd swelled to about 100, including faculty and staff, an hour later. Faculty and students alike grilled job candidate Wayne Watson, the current chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, on everything from placement test scores and building names to the 2005 no-confidence vote against him and his management style.

“It actually speaks well for the future of Chicago State,” says philosophy professor Paul Gomberg. “Not that we’ll have a better administration … [but] there’s been a kind of a student uprising and a faculty uprising, and that means the top-down management style is being challenged.”

Many on campus expressed outrage at the selection process they regard as bankrupt because most students and faculty weren’t consulted until the two finalists were named. Carol Adams, the secretary of the Illinois department of Human Services, is the other finalist. She spent Monday on campus responding to a similarly cynical crowd.

“We’re very upset by the style which you represent,” sociology professor Pancho McFarland told Watson during one forum.

“We’re upset at the process, yes, but we’re also upset by the two candidates presented, you included, that just don’t provide the direction we need to go,” says McFarland.

In the face of such strong criticism of the process and of the two candidates, Watson tried to defend himself, often walking between rows of seats as he talked and standing just a few feet away from people asking him questions.

“I’m an educator,” Watson says. “My goal is to try to bring about change. My goal is to bring about education for students that will help them fulfill themselves.”

To that end, Watson proposed expanding many of CSU’s academic programs.

“I would be looking at a law school, I would be looking at a master’s degree in nursing, I would be looking at an MBA program in accounting,” he says.

But by mid-afternoon, many students and faculty made no secret that they were dissatisfied at Watson’s credentials and his answers. Many passed around a large rubber stamp reading “Do Not Hire,” putting the phrase across evaluation forms.

“I don’t think he’s qualified for the position,” says senior biology major Raven Curling. “He’s not prepared. He’s not aware of what we need and he doesn’t put any effort into trying to be (aware).”

Phillip Beverly, a political science professor, said the hiring of either Watson or Adams was a foregone conclusion, regardless of what students and faculty thought.

“Dr. Watson has been very clear in his unpreparedness to lead the university,” Beverly says. He adds, “That unpreparedness isn’t his fault. It rests with the board in making him a finalist.”