Presidential search committee begins hunt
JAMES HIGHSMITH
Staff Writer
ROBERT CONRADI THE WASHTENAW VOICE
The Presidential Search Committee consists of 13 members, including one student representative.
The search for a new president to replace Larry Whitworth is under way, with a 13-member committee already building a profile of what it wants in a new leader for Washtenaw Community College.
The committee was named at the Nov. 23 meeting of the college’s Board of Trustees, and within a few weeks they were holding focus groups on campus to solicit information about the search.
The committee is working with the Association of Community College Trustees to identify and evaluate potential candidates.
Strong leadership, very personable, straightforward and accessible were just some of the personality traits being thrown around by WCC faculty and community members in a Dec. 7 open forum at WCC.
“We get no less than 20 and no more than 40 candidates,” said ACCT Board Leadership Services Specialist John Steinecke.
The committee will narrow the candidates down until there are between seven and 10, depending on how many match the profile that the community will shape during process. After that, the committee will narrow the field again, this time to three, four or five finalists who will undergo extensive background checks and examinations.
“I think that they would have to really entrench themselves in the local community,” said Dean of Continued Education and Community Services Marilyn Donham, when asked about things the new president should know. “There are a lot of things that go on here that are really unique.”
The 13-member committee was picked from seven different groups around the WCC community: the Board of Trustees, faculty, administration, students, community representatives, the WCC Foundation representatives and the Washtenaw Technical Middle College.
