The search for a new University of North Dakota president will soon begin.
Current president Mark Kennedy will be leaving June 15th for his new position in Colorado.
That search will be co-chaired by Board of Higher Education member Casey Ryan and former UND business school dean Dennis Elbert. But the Board made a few changes to the procedure. First, the search committee will be limited to 11 members. Second, the committee chairs will be able to select the recruitment firm. Board member Nick Hacker – who made the motion to create the committee, with the conditions attached – said this deviates from the practice where the Chancellor and system office would choose that firm.
Hacker said if the Committee will be spending more than $100,000 on the search, it will have to use one of the four search firms the Chancellor identified through a “request for proposal” process. He said if it’s less than that, the Committee can call for two bids, and pick the best one.
"The intent is not to be reviewing 70 or 80 candidates, but to recruit those 10 to 15 candidates that really fit well for North Dakota," Hacker said in an interview. "You can do that by using a recruitment firm, and with a smaller committee."
Hacker said he thinks the search can easily be done in less than a year.
"The question will be -- whoever is selected may not be able to start for a period of time, because they may be on a contract somewhere else," Hacker said.
Rayn said he plans to get together with Elbert soon, pick the committee and start writing a job description for the president.
