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Preparations For The Search For A New NIU President Move Forward

NIU's Altgeld Hall
Susan Stephens
/
WNIJ
NIU's Altgeld Hall

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?’”

Credit Guy Stephens/ WNIJ
The NIU Presidential Search Preparation Committee meets in Altgeld Hall.

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. 

Guy Stephens produces news stories for the station, and coordinates our online events calendar, PSAs and Arts Calendar announcements. In each of these ways, Guy helps keep our listening community informed about what's going on, whether on a national or local level. Guy's degrees are in music, and he spent a number of years as a classical host on WNIU. In fact, after nearly 20 years with Northern Public Radio, the best description of his job may be "other duties as required."