MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The process to pick West Virginia University’s next president is underway. The Board of Governor’s is presently assembling the search committee which will consist of representatives of all stakeholders in the school. Board of Governor’s Chairman Jim Dailey says he’s already signed the order to all of those groups to begin considering who they want on the committee.
Speaking on MetroNews Talkline, Dailey indicated they might hire a “head hunter” to help narrow down the choices.
“I know in the last search they hired a research firm to investigate the candidates they were looking at,” he said. “That research was done more on a confidentiality basis.”
Dailey said the search committee will make the decision collectively, but he suspects a lot of the intersted candidates will be recruited by a collective network of higher ed people tied to WVU. The net will include former Presidents Jim Clements, E. Gordon Gee, and Gene Budig.
“They may know the presidents of lots of institutions and in contacting those presidents they may say they have great provosts or particular deans who would make good candidates,” Dailey explained. “There’ll be a real good chain of command of who knows who and how they contact us and submit their applications.”
Dailey said the goal was to have the new president hired and on board by the fall semester.