Kennesaw State’s Presidential Search and Screen Committee announced in an email to students, faculty and staff on May 21 that they have sent three recommendations for presidential candidates to the Board of Regents Special Committee.
The Search and Screen committee met on May 14 and 15 to interview nine candidates and learn more about their qualifications. From those nine, the committee recommended three candidates to the BOR Special committee.
According to the email, the Special committee met late in May to look at the recommended candidates. After the committee reviews the candidates, they will recommend their own finalists to the entire BOR.
In the email, the Search and Screen committee also wrote that they hope to announce details of “campus visit(s) once the finalist(s) are announced.”
Chair of the Search and Screen committee Doug Moodie said that the BOR will likely make an announcement about the presidential finalists sometime during the second week of June.
After the committee first announced on May 9 that finalists might visit campus in late May or early June, several faculty members were concerned that this was not a convenient time for KSU community members to make it to campus and meet with finalists.
Among those faculty members was Heather Pincock, an associate professor of conflict management and member of the faculty senate. However, Pincock also said that the Search and Screen committee was clear about their timeline from the beginning of the search process. The proposed timeline for the search is available on KSU’s website.
Several faculty senate members wanted finalists to visit at a time when more of the KSU community would be on campus, possibly during the fall semester. Pincock said this would have been a more transparent option after much of the KSU community lost trust in the university during the last presidential search.
The Search and Screen committee has planned, however, to hire someone to take over the presidential position by July 1.
“It is harder to have this ideal open search when they have to meet their deadline,” Pincock said.
Pincock also stressed that while the committee sent their recommendations to the Special committee, the BOR may not choose more than one finalist. She also said that the BOR does not have to choose one of the three candidates that the committee sent them.
“Ultimately, the BOR will choose who our next president is,” Pincock said.
She also mentioned that some candidates may remove themselves from the running before finalists are announced. Pincock said that, as part of a “courtesy timeframe,” the BOR might let candidates know if they are not seriously being considered for the position before their names are made public as finalists.
