Iowa State University search committee to evaluate 78 applicants for president

AMES — A 12-member search committee charged with identifying Iowa State University’s next president is scheduled to meet next week to discuss in closed session the 78 prospects who applied.

The Board of Regents did not provide additional details about the more than six dozen applicants who filed their paperwork by the Sept. 19 deadline — including any breakdown by gender or experience in academia.

The committee will open its Oct. 6 meeting on the ISU campus with a brief rundown of the closed session process before taking the meeting offline. The committee then will spend an anticipated four hours evaluating applicants before bringing the meeting into open session to discuss next steps.

A tentative timeline released earlier this year has the committee choosing semifinalists at that Oct. 6 meeting and developing questions they’ll ask during semifinalist interviews — tentatively planned for Oct. 20.

The committee on Oct. 20 is scheduled to identify three to four finalists to bring to the ISU campus in early November.

The Board of Regents is scheduled to meet for a regular meeting in Ames on Nov. 11-13 — and at that time will hear from the search committee, interview finalists in closed session, and choose a president-elect.

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That person will succeed Wendy Wintersteen, who in May announced plans to retire in January 2026 after eight years at the helm of the nearly 168-year-old institution.

When Wintersteen began her tenure in late 2017 following a national search that put her up against University of Georgia Provost Pamela Whitten and Sonny Ramaswamy, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Wintersteen became the university’s first female president.

At 68, Wintersteen said she’s retiring after 46 years with the campus — having started her Cyclone journey as one of the first female ISU Extension associates in integrated pest management before advancing to become inaugural endowed dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and director of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station.

‘Now be illegal’

The Iowa State presidential search is the first across the Board of Regents system since lawmakers during the 2024 Legislative session passed Senate File 2435, which removes of a search committee’s power.

The amended law allows the board to use a search committee, but stipulates that only regents can serve as “voting members.”

“This is a significant departure from past presidential selection processes where the Board of Regents abdicated their responsibility in electing a university president, allowing candidates to be narrowed down by some of the most extreme factions of the campus community,” Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, wrote to the board after Wintersteen announced her retirement. “These past processes were not only a mistake, but following such an approach in the selection of Iowa State's next president would now be illegal.

“I trust the board recognizes the legislative intent and importance of this change.”

The 12 search committee members tasked with finding Iowa State’s next president includes four regents — JC Risewick, a Republican; Robert Cramer, a Republican; Greta Rouse, a Republican; and Kurt Tjaden, who identifies as an independent.

All four were appointed to the board by Gov. Kim Reynolds. Risewick is serving as the search committee’s co-chair, along with Meghan Gillette, Iowa State Faculty Senate president and associate teaching professor of human development and family studies.

The committee also includes Iowa State’s student government, Graduate and Professional Student Senate, and Professional and Scientific Council presidents; two professors; and two alumni who have experience in private industry — including Wells Fargo Home Mortgage retired copresident Cara Heiden and Pivot Bio board member Roger Underwood.

Eight of the 12 committee members are male.

‘Political influence’

In drafting the position description, the group agreed to list “significant senior-level executive experiences” as being “preferably in the realm of higher education,” rather than required. And, likewise, suggested an earned doctorate is “strongly preferred,” but not mandatory.

In the position description, the committee listed top among its expectations a “servant leader who is forward thinking and has the ability to navigate change.”

“The new president must be able to make courageous decisions while leading in a shifting higher education environment,” according to the position description. “The candidate must be an advocate of the land-grant mission, upholding the hallmarks of teaching, research, service, and extension.”

He or she also must — among other things — demonstrate “respect for faculty and staff contributions, free inquiry of knowledge, professional development, and shared governance.”

And a new president must understand “the role of intercollegiate athletics, its current environment, and its substantial impact on the university.”

Before launching the search over the summer, AGB Search — the firm hired to help find Iowa State’s next leader — flagged several factors influencing presidential searches right now, including high turnover in higher education leadership and “political influence and other external influences on searches.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com