Ball State has narrowed down the number of presidential candidates to five and plans to recommend two or three finalists to the Board of Trustees this month, a university spokesperson confirmed.
The finalists were chosen from 22 applicants and do not include political figures or current business executives, search committee chairman Wayne Estopinal said.
The search began four months ago in November after President Jo Ann Gora announced her retirement in June, ending her 10-year presidency.
Hollis Hughes, former Board of Trustees president, said in a press conference following the announcement that the university is not looking for a temporary replacement or interim president, but a long-term leader.
The search has been closed, meaning names of the candidates have not been released. Instead a committee including Kyle Pierce, student member of the Board of Trustees, is considering the candidates.
Students were invited to voice their opinions in an open forum Jan. 15. Only seven students attended.
The university used a closed search for the first time when hiring Gora in 2004. Students and the University Senate questioned this method and asked for more representation.
Gora and Hughes said during a press conference Oct. 23, 2013 that a closed search allowed them to consider the best candidates.
“Just about every one of the finalists were sitting chancellors or presidents,” Gora said in the conference. “So that leads to a closed search. ...“In the end, you want the best candidate pool possible, and a closed search is ultimately the best way to get that. In the end, it is the Board of Trustees who select the president, so their opinion is what matters.”
Gora said in an interview with the Daily News March 26 that she doesn’t plan to slow down after leaving Ball State.
“I really don’t think about the end.” she said. “I am fully engaged everyday as if I was going to be continuing for another 10 years. The work that we are doing this semester is as important in charting the future of the university as the work we’ve done in any semester.”
She said in the next few months she hopes to finish the academic and campus master planning processes.
In the press conference Gora said retiring at the end of June 2014 is the right time for her, regardless of the fact that her contract lasts through the 2016-17 academic year.
“It is the relentless pace of these kind of jobs that makes them exhausting, really,” Gora said. “And so at some point you say, ‘Okay, I need some space in my life.’ I feel that I need more space in my life right now.”
She said she hasn’t given much thought beyond the next eight months, but she and her husband, Roy Budd, own a home in Williamsburg, Va., about three miles from their grandchildren.
“It would be nice to actually live in the house,” Gora said. “So, we will probably take up residence in Virginia.”
