As the Ohio University’s Board of Trustees gave updates on the school’s search for a new president, current President Roderick McDavis said he is taking his last year in office “one day at a time.”
“This is a bittersweet year. I still love what I do,” he said Friday during a session for the media. “As we ended the meeting it’s sort of like, ‘OK, that’s my last fall Board of Trustees meeting,’ so I live in the moment, but I am aware when a meeting concludes.”
David Wolfort, chair of the board, said the search for a new president is on schedule and that the university hopes to have between eight to 10 candidates to interview in December. Those interviews will likely not take place on OU’s campus, he said.
The search for potential candidates is still open, according to Wolfort, who said an advertisement for the position will run in the Chronicle of Higher Education on or before Nov. 7.
“We’ve trusted Witt/Kieffer, our search firm, to reach out through various mediums,” Wolfort said of the advertisement.
No further details regarding the search, such as names of candidates, were given at the time.
The university is currently paying Witt/Kieffer, a Chicago-based company, $150,000 to search for a new president, according to previous Post reports. The firm is also working with a university committee composed of 21 individuals who will assist in the decision, though the Board of Trustees will ultimately make the final call on the presidency.
The trustees approved various construction projects across campus, including the demolition of O’Bleness House and Martzolff House on South Green and the Alden Library renovation project.
The approval allows the university to expand restrooms, add a new service desk to the library’s fourth floor and move the Academic Advancement Center to the renovated space on the second floor. The project has a total budget of about $2.9 million.
Front Room Coffeehouse and Latitude 39, both in Baker Center, could also see updates in the future. The current budget for those projects is slated at about $1 million.
Prior to the approval of the resolutions, the topic of college rankings was also presented to the board by Stephen Golding, senior vice president for strategic initiatives.
Focused mostly on the rankings published by U.S. News & World Report, Golding and the board expressed some concern over OU’s falling ranking over the past few years. In the most recent report, OU ranked 146th overall out of 310 institutions and 74th among public universities, according to Golding’s presentation.
“I think we do great work and I think Ohio University is top in my books, but I am alarmed when we have to answer to these type of rating differentials,” Wolfort said. Despite that, the trustees said they are aware of the fact that many families and prospective students pay attention to rankings such as the one in U.S. News & World Report.
While McDavis agreed that rankings are important for the university’s public image, the continued growth of applications for new students is the “best measure” in his eyes.
The next Board of Trustees meeting will take place on the Athens campus Jan. 19 and 20.
Kaitlin Coward contributed to this report.
