Choosing USU’s new president

Despite President Stan Albrecht’s announcement in February that he would be stepping down, a new president for Utah State University has yet to be found.

Geoffrey Landward, the assistant commissioner for policy & planning on the Board of Higher Education, said the process to hire a new president usually takes between six months and a year.

The process begins with the Utah State Board of Regents selecting the President Search Committee. The committee is made up of members from the Board of Regents, the USU Board of Trustees, USU Administration, faculty and staff, and community/alumni representatives. Representing the students on the board is student body president Ashley Waddoups, who is trying to ensure that students are one of the new president’s top priorities.

“I want a president who will actually show that he or she cares about us as students,” Waddoups said. “I know that sometimes students are an afterthought for some people.”

Once the committee is selected, six public meetings are held in which the public can vocalize what values they would like to see in the new president.

“We held six public meetings in April with input from community stakeholders and stakeholders from both the Logan campus and regional campuses to really see what it was that people felt was really important in a president,” said Melanie Heath, the communications director for the Board of Regents.

Once the meetings are completed the committee creates a job description for the position and posts it online for the public. https://www.usu.edu/president/presidential-search/USU-Presidential-Search-Announcement.pdf

“We spent three hours or more parsing through every sentence and considering every comment we have from the public to make sure everything is represented,” Landward said.

Once the description is approved, interested applicants can begin submitting application materials. For USU, the submission period began in May and will continue until the committee can select three to five final candidates.

“We will keep doing this process until we find the right person,” Landward said.

During the committee’s application review process, everything that the committee discusses or reviews is required to remain confidential.

“The people who apply for these jobs are already the presidents or vice presidents and so they are hesitant to put their names out there in a public way that could cause them to have problems with their current employer,” Landward said.

Once the final candidates are selected, a press release will be presented to the public and the Board of Regents will select the new president.

Until the new president is selected, Albrecht will continue to fill the role as president.  

@HowardShanie

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