The Board of Regents held a conference call Monday to established procedures for selecting a new president of the University of Northern Iowa. Ben Allen announced earlier this month that he’ll retire from his position at U.N.I. within the next year.
Regents president ,Craig Lang, speculates the experience of hiring a new Iowa State University President just a year ago will speed this process. “President Allen has told us that he would happily be there until July — but like Iowa State — I would hope that this search committee would get started as quickly as the RFP is done and we have a search firm that feel comfortable with, that we can work with,” Lang says.
“I would hope that this committee would work very quickly and maybe have a potential president by Christmastime, but maybe that’s hopeful thinking.”
Lang says the Iowa State experience will expedite choosing an executive search firm with about the same $150,000 cost as the Iowa State search. The search firm will recruit candidates for a 20-member presidential selection committee that includes a cross-section of U.N.I. faculty, staff and alumni.
There will be three Regents on the search committee.