Regents interview University of Northern Iowa presidential finalists

The full Board of Regents today is interviewing its three finalists for the University of Northern Iowa presidency, with plans to announce their choice later this afternoon.

The interviews are happening in the same order the candidates were publicly announced. Former Temple University President Neil Theobald is first, followed by interim UNI President Jim Wohlpart, and then Montana State University Billings Chancellor Mark Nook.

The tentative schedule has each interview lasting an hour and a half, meaning the final interview will wrap at 2 p.m. The board then plans to meet for two hours, with an announcement expected sometime after 4 p.m.

Whoever lands the job will replace former UNI President Bill Ruud, who left campus over the summer for the presidency at smaller, private Marietta College in Ohio. Wohlpart, who came to UNI for the provost position in 2015, has been filling in as interim president since July.

A search for Ruud's successor began in earnest in August, when a 21-member search committee held listening sessions with campus constituents, met with AGB Search - the firm hired to facilitate the process - and conducting its first public meeting.

After crafting an advertisement, the position went live in September, and the search amassed 46 applications by its deadline Oct. 19. The search committee then met to narrow their list to seven semifinalists - six of whom continued in the process.

The group held off-site interviews in November and then chose four finalists - three of whom accepted the offer to come to campus.

Theobald, Wohlpart, and Nook participated in full-day campus visits and public forums at the end of the month, and the search firm conducted a campus and community survey collecting feedback on each candidate.

The UNI faculty union - United Faculty - conducted its own survey in hopes of gathering quantitative data allowing candidates to be ranked, if necessary.

Details from both those surveys have not been made public, but the search committee met in closed session for several hours Monday to discuss the feedback and share their own thoughts following last week's public forums and campus visits.

The committee then met in closed session with the full Board of Regents on Monday afternoon to present their findings on each candidate. That differs from last year's search for a new University of Iowa president, which was marred by controversy after the search committee was disbanded earlier in the process.

The Board of Regents, in that search, rejected widespread criticism of then-candidate Bruce Harreld by choosing him for the job. That selection resulted in faculty and student votes of no confidence in the board, and the American Association of University Professors subsequently sanctioned UI for its board's disregard of shared governance values.

UNI Professor Dan Power, who publicly criticized the UI search, co-chaired the UNI search with Board of Regents President Pro Tem Katie Mulholland.

Faculty and student reaction to UNI's finalists have been largely positive, although some have criticized their lack of diversity. All three are white men, and Mulholland told The Gazette all six of the semifinalists were male and appeared to be white.

All four of the UI presidential finalists last year were white men, raising questions about potential equal employment opportunity and affirmative action violations. But Mulholland said she believes AGB Search met its charge to find a diverse pool of candidates for UNI - as the firm advertised in a diverse array of publications, and nine of the 46 applicants were women.

Whoever takes over at UNI will be charged with increasing enrollment at the 11,905-student campus that has struggled in recent years with its budget and funding sources. Board and university officials have said they'd like to see overall growth at UNI, including in out-of-state students, and increased regional outreach.