Upcoming Events
April 11 - Interviews and Discussion of Search Firms
April 15 - Search Firm Announced
April 21, 22 - Open Forums
April 25-27 - Communication about Search Process
Assistant Secretary and Trustee Matt Momper is leading the search committee for the new president. He said the board selected their top four options of search firms for interviews.
On April 6, the board interviewed R. William Funk and Associates and Witt/Kieffer. It will follow up with interviews with Parker Executive Search and AGB Search April 11.
The board will announce who it will use as a search firm on April 15 at its meeting, but Momper said there is no timeline set in place to select a new president.
“We’re not going to leave any stone unturned. We’re going to be asking a lot of questions,” he said. “It’s very critical for us to interview them and then get the ball rolling, but we’re not going to rush it.”
The board did not comment on how much the search firm will cost, last time it cost them $150,000.
Both the board and selected search firm will host open forum meetings April 21 and 22. These meetings will be open to faculty, general staff, students, alumni and community leaders.
“They’re going to be able to help us with the open forums, collect all the information from all facets of the university,” Momper said. “I think that’s critical, understanding Ball State.”
From those forums and other private meetings, Momper said the search firm will be able to take the information to evaluate and select a pool of candidates.
The selected firm will be able to create a profile of Ball State to send out to potential employers.
The board will look at the success of each firm individually, particularly at “like-type” universities, Momper said.
While Funk and Associates has never worked with Ball State, they are no stranger to postsecondary education placement in the state of Indiana.
The company’s CEO, R. William Funk, has an MBA from Purdue and placed the previous three presidents there. Funk has also had a hand in placements at Indiana University, Indiana State and is currently searching for a replacement for Ivy Tech’s president.
John K. Thornburgh, senior partner of Witt/Kieffer, most recently found a president for Towson University in Maryland in December 2015. Towson’s enrollment is around 23,000 students, similar to Ball State's.
Thornburgh also found fellow Mid-American Conference schools — the University of Massachusetts and Bowling Green State University — new presidents.
Parker Executive Search found fellow MAC school Eastern Michigan University's new president in February 2016 and is in the final steps to find Georgia Southern University's new president.
In the past few months, AGB Search has chosen the presidents for places like Marymount California University, the University of North Dakota and Capital University.
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