The search for a new president for Northern Illinois University is getting underway. The Presidential Search Preparation Committee held one of several public meetings Thursday.
The committee’s announced mission is to create benchmarks based on current practices and trends related to presidential searches and contracts, and prepare a draft of the job description as well as a document listing “points of pride” for the university.
Members of the committee are split into teams that research and discuss different parts of the mission and come up with draft proposals. The teams then come together to share them with the whole committee.
Matt Streb is University Liaison to the Board of Trustees. He said the Board’s decision to not start the formal search until the fall gave committee members the luxury of being able to do their work thoroughly.
“And so," he said, "they really want to spend some time working with different constituencies on campus to get a sense of ‘what do other presidential searches look like?’”
Streb said the committee's work is an important part of the process. It's also somewhat unusual.
"It’s the type of thing that, frankly, most schools do not do when they enter into a presidential search," he said. "This will be very valuable information to have, as we enter onto the formal presidential search in the fall.”
The committee will continue to develop those ideas over the next couple of months. The recommendations are scheduled to be presented to the NIU Board of Trustees in June.
