As the spring semester begins, the search for a new president of Northern Kentucky University is well under way. By early April, the Board of Regents is slated to announce the new president, according to the Presidential Search and Screening Committee’s timeline.

Currently, the committee is in the process of conducting telephone screenings and face-to-face interviews with the 20-25 candidates selected in December. Because of a confidentiality agreement with the hired search firm Isaacson, Miller, the committee is unable to release who the potential candidates are.

Martin Butler, the committee chair, said the list of prospects grew about 20 percent in four days after posting the vacancy and after the search firm generated some interest among candidates.
Before March 1, the committee will have narrowed down the candidates to a pool of semi-finalists.

Joseph Fons, the student representative on the screening committee, was unable to say exactly how many applications the committee has received due to confidentiality agreements, but he said the search firm has been working hard to gather names of possible presidential candidates.

Fons said he is “very excited” because the search process is about to pick up. “We were sitting and waiting on the search firm for a while, and now it’s our turn to take over,” he said.
By spring break, the semi-finalists will be filtered down to about three to five candidates, where background checks will be completed and off-list references will be contacted. By March 15, the names and information of the finalists will be released to the public.

In the remaining time between spring break and the official announcement, the finalists will make their way to NKU’s campus for meetings with constituent groups. During this time, the groups will evaluate the finalists and give that information to the search committee.

With that information, the search committee will send the three to five names to the Board of Regents, which will make the final decision on who will become NKU’s next president.