Back in the 70s it was rare for universities to use search firms to find and Vet candidates - with only 2 percent using them, and only at private colleges. By 2015 that number surged to 92 percent. It's a model used in the corporate world, which is where many university trustees come from.

So when YSU hired Bill Johnson, trustees said they were going to follow that model.

"Running an open search has had a hampering effect on the ability to find the best qualified candidates for leadership positions," said YSU Trustee Anita Hackstedde. "Those candidates choose simply not to apply and we never get a chance at them," she said.

The concern is that some candidates fear backlash from their current employers, so they never apply.

"It's one of the mainstay statements that every search firm will tell you," said Judith Wilde, Research Professor at Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. "However, we have not been able to identify anyone that that's happened to," she said.

Wilde has studied hundreds of searches and found that not only are there no examples of anyone facing retaliation, but in fact, many candidates Benefit from being considered for a presidential role.

"If you or I apply for a job, we may not want our employer to know, there are other times where we want them to know and it ends up being a leveraged pay raise, a premptuory counter offer," said David Cuillier, Director of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project.

When it comes to these search firms, researchers also suggest many of them do more harm than good. There's usually a contract between an entity and the search firm, that allows for the firm to be paid a percentage of the eventual president's salary.

"The contracts we've seen are either 30 percent or 32 percent," said Wilde. "It certainly at that point behooves the search firm to identify the most expensive candidate they can find," she said.

That's even if the candidate wasn't the best choice for the job.

"Half search firms really don't do due diligence in background checks other than checking with the references the candidates list and we all know that's not that helpful," said Cuillier.

Wilde's research also found that as closed searches increase, the amount of time presidents stay on the job decreases.

"We think that that is part of the reason that we are seeing the full tenure of presidents shortening," Wilde said.

Hackstedde said they made sure to do this process by the book.

""We were very careful to comply with both the open meetings act and the public records act," Hackstedde said.

The Public Records Act requires public entities to provide records "kept" by the entity like resumes of candidates, for example. Since the university used a private company to complete the process, that company kept all the records, meaning they can stay secret.

Cuillier says they are following the letter of the law, but not the spirit.

"Government in this country is getting way more secretive, they're figuring out how to shut out the public and that's not just my opinion, that's the facts, that's the data," Cuillier said.

In the case of YSU's contract with WittKeiffer, they don't receive a percentage, but rather a flat rate of $130 thousand dollars, along with travel expenses and other accommodations.

21 News requested the public record of the other candidates several times, but never received them.

In addition, we asked YSU Board of Trustees President Mike Peterson and Trustee Hackstedde multiple times to interview, but they never responded.