A Selection Committee is a group of people who are responsible for interviewing and selecting a candidate for a particular position. The Selection Committee is generally comprised of a variety of employees from different staff levels, employee groups and departments. This ensures that the committee has a diverse set of perspectives through which to evaluate the applicant pool. This diversity is important because it reduces the likelihood that a single individual will have a bias towards or against a specific candidate.
During the Selection Committee interview process, it is imperative that all members of the committee give each candidate the same opportunity to present their qualifications and skills. The Selection Committee should avoid asking leading or subjective questions that could negatively impact the candidate’s response. In addition, it is recommended that the Selection Committee limit each individual’s interview to one hour to allow for adequate time to evaluate candidates.
It is also important to keep in mind the diversity of the committee’s members. If there are significant differences in the opinions of committee members, it is important to talk through those differences to understand why they differ and if they will impact the fairness of the committee’s decision making process. This can be particularly difficult in the case of gender, race or cultural background, but robust discussion can result in more informed and inclusive decisions that benefit the entire University community.
To help ensure that a Selection Committee has a clear understanding of its role and the processes involved in the selection process, the Human Resource Services team has developed a Selection Committee toolkit and online training module. It is essential that both the Chairperson and all Selection Committee members complete this training on an annual basis to ensure that a fair, equitable and objective process is followed.
When selecting at-large teams, the committee uses a number of factors to rank teams 1 through 68. These include record, strength of schedule and quality of wins and losses. The committee also looks at how teams have fared in recent tournaments to see if they deserve to join the top four seed lines.
The committee may also use other criteria, including how teams have performed in the conference and the overall record of the program. The committee is also concerned with whether a team’s nonconference schedule will allow it to be successful in the tournament.
After ranking the teams, the committee then assigns them to regions. It is important that the committee spreads teams out so they do not play each other in the same region until the championship game. This protects the integrity of the tournament by ensuring that there are no “rubber stamp” teams (i.e., teams that are ranked higher because of a weak schedule) making it into the final four. In order to accomplish this, the committee will usually try to make sure that the top three teams from each conference are in different regions. In the case of the NCAA tournament, this means that teams like Tennessee and Kentucky must not be in the same region.