Starting today, University of Minnesota-Morris officials will begin interviewing finalists for the campus’ highest administrative position.
The nine-month process began in April, when University President Mark Yudof appointed a 15-member committee to sift through applications.
Yudof instructed the chancellor-search committee to select candidates according to certain requirements. One candidate said his criteria were like looking for someone to walk on water, said Arden Granger, the executive secretary to the chancellor search committee.
But Granger also called the criteria “a fantastic wish list.”
The committee, made up of Morris students, faculty and staff members, used Yudof’s recommendations to narrow the pool of national applicants when they conducted interviews in Minneapolis this fall.
The five finalists from that round of interviews will be re-interviewed this month.
Interim chancellor Samuel Schuman, an English professor at Morris, is one of the five candidates to be interviewed. Schuman has served as the western Minnesota campus’ leader since Morris Chancellor David Johnson retired July 1, 1998. A chancellor search that year was called off after the University’s four campuses failed to agree on a candidate.
The other four candidates are Jerome Garris, director of foundation and corporate relations at Claremont McKenna College; Nicholas Henry, professor of political science and former president at Georgia Southern University; Roy Austensen, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Valparaiso University; and John Ettling, interim vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of North Dakota.
The committee will further narrow the pool and recommend those candidates to Yudof by Jan. 15, and he will select the new chancellor in the spring.
“President Yudof has asked for two or three names of people that the Morris campus would back no matter who ended up getting the position,” Granger said. “Basically, the campus doesn’t have the final say.”
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Jessica Kimpell welcomes comments at [email protected]. She can also be reached at (612) 627-4070 x3238.