Bermuda College?s new president elect was appointed by a board of governors acting without a chairman or deputy chairman, leading to criticism about the way the selection was conducted.

Dr. Duranda Greene was chosen for the top job ? believed to attract a salary of $148,000 a year ? at the publicly-funded college earlier this month and will take over as president next summer when Dr. Charles Green completes a three-year contract.

The college acted entirely within the law with regard to her appointment ? having a quorum of the board make the final choice in consultation with the Minister of Education ? but sources have questioned the timing of the decision and whether the selection procedure needs to be changed.

The appointment was made soon after Nalton Brangman was sacked as chairman of the board of governors and announced immediately after the new chairman, former Premier Dame Jennifer Smith, was named. The advert for the post first appeared in February.can reveal that the deputy chairman of the board, Pandora Wright, set up a selection committee but was not involved in choosing Dr. Greene ? leaving the board to make the decision without its two leading members.

One source, who asked to remain anonymous, said: ?Bermuda College was without a chairman. Bermuda College had a deputy chair who did not vote. It strikes the college community today as a bit odd.

?If the deputy chair had stepped aside and there was no chair and this process had dragged on for such a long time, why all of a sudden, within ten days of the departure of the chair, was the appointment made??

Mr. Brangman said he could not comment on the process but added: ?I?m surprised at how quickly it was done after my departure.?

Evelyn James Barnett, the college?s director of communications, said last night that the Bermuda College Act did not require a chairman or deputy chairman to be available when appointing a president.

?It was a fully legitimate process,? she said.

Dr. Greene will become the college?s first female president and the youngest person to take on the role after being picked from three internal candidates.

Ms Wright, director of human resources at ACE, is a friend of the president elect.

The college issued a statement this week describing Ms Wright?s role in the selection process as ?very basic?.

It said: ?She was not involved in the process, other than ensuring it was progressing.?

It added: ?Once the application process was completed, each candidate was interviewed by the selection committee without the involvement of the deputy chair and its recommendations were forwarded to the board for independent review.

?The board then interviewed each candidate separately to make its own recommendations and, although the deputy chair was present at this meeting, she did not cast a vote.?

A second source said interviews for the post were originally due to take place in July but were cancelled at short notice and re-scheduled for September.

Those interviews were also cancelled without explanation, the source claimed.

?The interviews were finally scheduled the day of the ousting of the chair on September 21. Then there was an interview with the board on October 10. The president was appointed on the 11th. It was pretty irregular.?

A third source queried the length of the time ? from February to October ? the selection process took.

?ACE Insurance should be asked how long does it take, by their standards, for the processing of an executive position, given this was being organised by the director of HR (Ms Wright).?

Bermuda College Educators Association (BCEA) said yesterday it had asked to be included in the selection process but was not.

Association chairman Professor Ann Parsons said: ?It is standard practice in many tertiary educational institutions to include representation from a body such as the BCEA in the selection process for executive posts of an academic nature.?

The criticism comes as the college awaits the findings of a Public Accounts Committee investigation into alleged perks received by current president Dr. Green, who took the post for $136,000 a year.

The committee is due to table a report in the House of Assembly next month.

The college statement said: ?It is inaccurate to imply that the selection process was inordinately long when one factors in the summer period and the availability of both committee members and candidates.?

It added: ?The selection committee worked long and hard to select the best candidate. The college is fully satisfied and delighted with the choice of a well qualified and high performing candidate.?

The two other internal candidates ? Dr. Larita Alford and Dr. Eugenie Simmons ? would not comment on the selection process. Dr. Greene and Ms Wright referred questions to the college?s communications department.