After two meetings of laying down ground rules, formulating a concrete job description and hiring a search consultant, the Presidential Search Committee is ready to get down to business and start looking at potential candidates.
“I am happy to report the process is well underway,” Search Committee Chair Allyn Ford said. “I think Chancellor Pernsteiner and the rest of the team did a lot of effort to make sure we had all the appropriate representation of the stakeholders involved.”@@http://dailyemerald.com/2012/02/01/presidential-search-committee-chosen/@@
The Search Committee was given the green light to put an advertisement in the Chronicle of Higher Education and several other outlets to spread the word. The committee will review candidates from all across the nation in order to find the most qualified applicant.@@http://chronicle.com/jobs/0000719268-01/?sid=ja&utm_source=ja&utm_medium=en@@
“We’re public, we’re out and moving, and from a committee standpoint the emphasis today is (to) shift to the search consultant going out and knocking on doors,” Ford said.
Diversified Search, the Philadelphia-based search consultant chosen to aid the committee in its search, will use its large web of higher education contacts to form a portfolio of possible candidates.@@http://www.diversifiedsearch.com/@@
“Our hope is, we’re going to have meetings once every two weeks to review the resumes as they come in and do some fine tuning and education for the search committee as we prepare for the big task to select who we recommend to the board,” Ford said.
Each committee member from the various campus constituencies all have varying opinions on what they want to see in a president, but they are all committed to sifting through each applicant’s attributes to find a candidate that fulfills everyone’s expectations.
“I am open to see what qualities emerge from the candidates that we look at,” said Michael Hames-Garcia, Search Committee member and University professor. “I think we will be evaluating as a committee which of those qualities among the candidates seem to be the best ones for the University.”@@see search committee link above@@
ASUO President Ben Eckstein said that he would like the new president to be someone who is committed and excited to work with students to achieve excellence.@@see search committee@@
The search has involved many different campus stakeholders, and many are encouraged to provide input to committee members to take into consideration, especially students.
“Pernsteiner himself said that he has never seen any OUS search in OUS history with as much student representation as we have in this search,” Eckstein said. “We have engaged students more in every step of the process than has ever been the case in the past, and I’m really proud of that.”