UM Curators round out presidential search team
The search is underway for a permanent president to head the UM system. The UM Board of Curators appointed co-chairs for the presidential search committee, announced open forums and the hiring of a presidential search firm at Ellis Library on Monday.
The presidential search committee consists of the six curators, two co-chairs, two faculty members, two students and a staff member. The committee is charged with picking a pool of candidates. The Board of Curators will make the final decision on the candidate who will head the UM system.
The board has also enlisted the help of Isaacson, Miller — a firm to help with the search. Isaacson, Miller recently helped with the search for the University of Nebraska system president. An employee of the firm said the committee should ask, “What do they hope the next president achieves?”
Tim Wolfe resigned because of racial issues brought up by Concerned Student 1950. The chair of the Board of Curators said diversity will play a big role in picking the next system president.
“Diversity is very important and we’ve reached out to a broader constituency that’s diverse in many ways, racially but in other ways. That’s why we enlarged the search committee to add faculty and staff and we’re going to spend a lot of time going out to the community,” said Hendrickson.
Curators will hold open forums the first week of April at all the system campuses to give the university community an opportunity to give input on who should be the next system president.
There is no date for when the committee will finish the presidential selection process. They plan to have a list of candidates by November or December.
