• Baker and Associates to work with university group to find presidential candidates
• Company used in earlier search that brought Jo Ann Gora to Ball State
• Search will be closed to public
The same search firm that brought President Jo Ann Gora to the university in 2004 will aid in the search for her replacement.
Joan Todd, executive director of public relations, confirmed that the firm conducting the search is Baker and Associates from Marietta, Ga. The university signed a contract with the firm for $150,000.
Baker and Associates was selected out of nine search firms that responded to a Ball State request sent out Nov. 1.
Todd said the university has put together a 16-member Ball State presidential search committee to work with Baker and Associates.
“[The Ball State committee] will primarily research the candidates, some will be brought forward by search committee,” she said.
The committee, which is comprised of trustees, administration and representatives from other areas of the university, will meet for the first time Friday to set criteria for the search firm to use when finding candidates.
Todd said as far as she knows, only one student will have input in the decision for the next president — Kyle Pierce, the student member of the Board of Trustees.
Pierce, a sophomore political science major, said because it is a closed search, he is not able to comment on his status as the only student involved in the selection process. A closed search means the search committee will not reveal the candidates and other areas of the search process. Todd said the criteria the committee decides upon are not likely to be released to the public.
This selection process is the second time Ball State has done a closed search. The first resulted in Gora’s hire.
Gora defended the closed search process during a press conference in December.
“In the end, you want the best candidate pool possible, and a closed search is ultimately the best way to get that,” she said. “In the end, it is the Board of Trustees who select the president, so their opinion is what matters.”
Gora said the other candidates that competed with her were almost all sitting presidents or chancellors at other universities, and they may have been dissuaded from applying if their applications were known to the public.
Board of Trustee President Hollis Hughes previously told the Daily News he hopes to find a candidate who is ready to step up to the full responsibilities without an interim president and hopes to have a candidate hired by Fall Semester.
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