Lincoln University has begun advertising its search for a new president.
In a regular meeting Thursday, the Lincoln University Presidential Search Committee met to discuss advertising and website updates, and begin transitioning focus to the vice president for academic affairs and provost search.
LU hired Greenwood/Asher & Associates in September to help conduct a national search for a permanent president and vice president for academic affairs and provost for an estimated $125,000-$135,000.
Greenwood/Asher will help LU with the logistics of the search — such as working to develop marketing materials, distributing information to the market, gathering information for the committee and engaging in recruiting calls.
The university retains decision-making powers, such as selecting where to advertise and which candidates move forward and which ones don’t.
Lincoln started publishing its presidential search advertisements in six locations Oct. 14, with plans to publish in two more locations within the next week.
Ads were published to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities’ website, Greenwood/Asher’s website and LinkedIn page, and Lincoln’s website and social media.
Two more publications will be added to the list next week.
“We can make sure that the ad is running in multiple locations covering the timeline that we needed to during this search, so we’re spacing them out a little bit,” said Marion Frenche, the Greenwood/Asher consultant working with Lincoln.
The university is still in the planning stages of the searches and used Thursday to begin focusing on the search for a vice president for academic affairs and provost.
The committee plans to add three faculty members and a graduate student to help conduct the vice president for academic affairs search process, but committee chairman and LU Curator Everidge Cade said those individuals are not yet identified.
After considering whether the university should be conducting the provost search at the same time as the search for a president, the committee decided to move forward with identifying candidates and waiting until the president is selected to get their input on the provost candidates.
“What we’re trying to do is just narrow it down for the president to look at,” Cade said. “We’re not going to make a decision about a provost until we firmly have a president in place, on board and they’re going to be an integral part of this decision-making process.”
The committee also worked to identify expectations of candidates and potential challenges they might face if selected to serve at Lincoln.
Experience with remedial coursework and a clear understanding of Lincoln’s widespread issue of academic probation among students were important factors to the committee members, as was experience with innovative academic programming.
“We have got to have a product out there that students want to buy and that’s going to work for them when they graduate,” said Curator Terry Rackers, a search committee member.
Raising Lincoln’s national profile and embracing interdisciplinary programs are also among top priorities for the provost hire.
The committee left with plans to review drafts of a presidential position description, interview questionnaire and committee criteria checklist for the presidential search, which will be used to help evaluate applications in a standardized way.
The committee meets again at 4 p.m. Thursday.