Dickinson State University interim President Stephen Easton may soon be dropping the “interim” designation.
North Dakota University System Chancellor Mark Hagerott plans to ask the full Board next month to hire him as the permanent President.
"The current interim President has been through a search in 2015, and was also required to go through a second search," Hagerott said. "So we have someone in place who has gone through two searches already, and was selected."
The second search for Easton was for the interim Presidency.
Easton replaced Dr. Thomas Mitzel, who resigned in 2019 to become the President at Kentucky Wesleyan College.
When Easton came to DSU, he faced a budget crunch – which resulted in $7 million in budget cuts.
"He's got an incredible attention to detail," Hagerott said. "He's gone through the budget line by line, spent hours with his staff and our staff, and he has a good grasp of that."
In a previous interview, Easton said it was a tough process.
"We had to cut positions, and some of them were occupied," Easton said. "That certainly is a challenge."
But Easton said he believes the campus is coming together. He said he's been meeting with the academic departments, asking them to set some enrollment goals, and look at restructuring some of their delivery of the courses.
"That's so we can still continue to be offering quality courses," Easton said. "I've been very impressed by the mood of the campus to go forward."
Easton said it means doing more with less people.
"That's a challenge," Easton said. "We're stepping up to that challenge."
