CHICAGO ? The president of Ball State's Board of Trustees said Friday that the presidential-search committee has finished its work, but the search for Ball State's new president hasn't ended.
In an executive session on March 30, the search committee handed to the Board a list of its top choices for the president's office. Some of those candidates were interviewed by the trustees this weekend at Chicago's O'Hare Hilton Hotel.
DeWeese continued to emphasize the confidentiality promised to the candidates, but he said they are mostly sitting presidents of other universities.
"We're very satisfied with the progress of the search," DeWeese said.
No firm timetable has been put in place for the selection of the new president, and DeWeese said it is unlikely to be made by the end of the semester.
"Three weeks is probably optimistic," DeWeese said.
Jerry Baker, the lead consultant for the search, said the candidates being interviewed by the Board likely would not have applied for the job if confidentiality had not been assured.
"These are all visible, working, successful people," Baker said.
Both DeWeese and Baker said the media attention given to student deaths, lawsuits and protests at Ball State in recent months have not affected the search much.
"It's been brought up as an issue but not a show stopper," Baker said. "No one has said, 'I wouldn't touch that.'"
The Board has been criticized by faculty and some students for the confidentiality of the presidential search. The confidentiality is a departure from past presidential searches, where names of the final candidates were made public.
The Board has defended its position by saying the only way to attract top-quality candidates is to promise confidentiality. If not, the candidates would be jeopardizing their jobs by applying to be Ball State's president.
Indiana's public access counselor, Michael Hurst, said the search is not likely to violate Indiana's Open Door Laws, although a press release from Ball State used language that could sound like it would.
The press release, dated Dec. 12, 2003, included a sentence that read, "Only the name of the individual selected as president will ever be made public."
"Different people could interpret that to mean different things," Moll said.
Ball State did admit that the presidential-search committee violated Open Door Laws when it held a meeting on Dec. 9, 2003. Heather Shupp, executive director of University Communications, said no notice was given of the meeting because of a clerical error. The minutes of that meeting are available on the presidential-search Web site, www.bsu.edu/presidentialsearch.
Since that December meeting, all meetings of the presidential-search committee have been held in executive session, Shupp said.
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