Finalists in the chancellor search are expected to be announced Monday.
Priciliano Fabian, president of Undergraduate Student Government and member of the search committee, said SIU President Glenn Poshard would announce finalists at 4 p.m. Monday in the John C. Guyon Auditorium in Morris Library.
Tom Britton, co-chairman of the search committee, said the finalists represent a diverse group, which was a main goal in the process.
“It depends on how you define diversity, of course, but I think we have worked very hard to include all kinds of people in the pool, and that still remains the case,” Britton said.
Fabian said offsite interviews took place from Sunday until Tuesday to narrow the six semifinalists to a number “less than six.”
Fabian said finalists have been provosts, vice chancellors and senior vice chancellors.
“They’re coming from diverse universities as well,” Fabian said. “Similar, in some ways, to our university, but different. We’re a diverse university, so why not bring in somebody else who’s going to be from a different kind of university and have a different kind of perspective?”
Fabian said the finalists are coming from universities that are either the same size as SIUC or slightly larger.
Chancellor Sam Goldman said the next chancellor has to learn to love the job.
“A new chancellor coming in from another area can’t be expected to love the place instantly, but that person has got to get to that very quickly … to be able to do all the things that are asked of that person,” Goldman said.
Goldman said the next chancellor must also get to know the community quickly, because the local community is involved with the university.
Fabian said having an outside person come into the chancellor role would be beneficial to the university.
“It’s the aspect of looking from the outside in and seeing what our problems are and pointing them out,” Fabian said. “What we saw in our interviews was that they could tell us what the problems were.”
Fabian said any of the finalists would be able to bring a fresh perspective to the university that it has never had before.
Britton said the committee had “rich, informative” meetings with the semifinalists, and it is happy with the work it has done so far.
“We’re now preparing to enter the final stretch and bring a good chancellor to the campus,” Britton said.
Stile Smith can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 259 or sts34@siu.edu
