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The board of directors at Oregon Health & Science University abandoned a resolution that would have immediately named medical school dean Dr. Nate Selden as president, replacing Dr. Danny Jacobs, after Gov. Tina Kotek opposed the rushed timeline.
The board had planned to vote on a three-year appointment for Selden at a regular board meeting today. That meeting was delayed because the board met in private for several hours to reconsider the move, board chair Chad Paulson said.
“After deliberation, the board has decided to table the motion to appoint a new president,” Paulson said at the beginning of the public board meeting. “I want to thank Dr. Nate Selden for his willingness to step up in this moment with his extensive knowledge of OHSU and Legacy Health, his deep relationships within our community, and his unwavering leadership. I have no doubt you will continue to be a top candidate for the position.”
OHSU is in the process of taking over crosstown rival Legacy Health, a deal that Jacobs announced in August 2023. Jacobs will remain president until a successor is named, university spokeswoman Sara Hottman said in an email.
The OHSU board tabled the vote on Selden just hours after Kotek put out a statement opposing the move.
“The governor believes the timeline put forward to appoint a new president compromises the future of the institution and that it would be a mistake to push through a decision of this magnitude without appropriate due diligence,” Kotek’s press office said Friday morning.
Kotek’s opinion matters. OHSU, once owned and operated by the state of Oregon, has been a “public corporation” since 1995. It’s independent, but it still has close ties to the state. It got $129 million from the taxpayer-supported general fund in the 2021-23 biennium, and many of its workers are part of the Oregon Public Employee Retirement System. Most importantly, Oregon’s governor appoints members to OHSU’s board, who, in turn, choose a board chair and president.
Selden, 60, is a pediatric neurosurgeon. A native Oregonian, he has a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, an M.D. from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. He completed a residency in neurosurgery at the University of Michigan and a fellowship in pediatric neurological surgery at Northwestern University. He joined the faculty at OHSU in 2000 and was named chair of the neurosurgery department in 2016, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Selden became interim dean of OHSU’s medical school in February after Jacobs ousted his predecessor, Dr. David Jacoby, for sending an email to selected staff detailing the events that led to the departure of Dr. Daniel Marks, who was accused of taking upskirt photos of a female student during class.
Jacoby’s account of the incident differed from that given by Jacobs and his head of human resources, Qiana Williams, who had sought to blame Jacoby alone for granting Marks a $46,000 “President’s Recognition Award” just before Marks was ousted for the alleged misconduct. Jacoby sued OHSU and Williams yesterday for defamation, retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, seeking $6.2 million.
OHSU said it couldn’t comment on pending litigation. Williams didn’t return a message sent on LinkedIn.
Rather than conduct a national search for Jacobs’ replacement, or appoint an interim president, OHSU board chair Chad Paulson said yesterday that the board would “contemplate a resolution” at today’s regular board meeting to appoint Selden to a three-year term, even though he has served as permanent dean of the medical school for just four months.
Two senior professors at OHSU yesterday expressed concern about the plan to WW, saying that the university was making the same mistake it did in April 2023, when the board gave chair Wayne Monfries sole authority to negotiate a new contract with Jacobs. Monfries extended Jacobs’ contract by two years and gave him an extra $700,000 in retirement pay just before OHSU started laying off workers to cut costs. Neither would be named because they fear retribution from university leaders, a common concern at OHSU.
Dr. Jeff Jensen, a vice chair in the School of Medicine and one of the few OHSU critics willing to risk reprisal by being named, said appointing Selden quickly was the right move and that the board erred in backing off.
“It is a mistake to continue with Danny indefinitely,” Jensen said. “The sooner he is out, the sooner we can begin the healing process to move OHSU forward. While it is tempting to think a national search is the right thing to do, we only have to look at Jacob’s recruitment to show that you never know what you’re going to get.”
Jensen pointed to the tenure of former OHSU president Joe Robertson, who served from 2006 to 2017, for evidence that Selden could succeed. Like Selden, Robertson was a department chair at OHSU before becoming president.
“Nate knows OHSU and understands the needs of the institution,” Jensen said. “And a search would have left Danny in power. He said he would stay until a replacement was named. Was that a threat or a promise? It took only 20 minutes for the board to name someone. That speaks volumes.”
Many members and leaders of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 328, which represents more than 8,000 workers at OHSU, have been sharply critical of the university’s management this year. They packed a board meeting in June to protest hundreds of layoffs made soon after Jacobs collected his extra retirement pay.
Members plan to play bingo while watching today’s board meeting, with squares for buzzwords including “mission critical,” “difficult choices,” and “strategic alignment.” There will be prizes, the union said. Here’s the union’s bingo card:
