The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning finished its first round of interviews of potential Mississippi State University presidential candidates Wednesday.
Scott Ross, IHL’s Board Search Committee chairman, said the committee interviewed each candidate the campus Search Advisory Committee recommended. He said each candidate was asked the same questions in order to preserve fairness.
“We definitely narrowed the field today,” Ross said. “We have invited some of the candidates back for the second round of interviews.”
Ross said each candidate has strengths that would benefit MSU.
“Frankly, we have a very tough decision ahead of us,” he said. “That’s a good thing though. I was very satisfied with the pool of candidates.”
The Board Search Committee will meet in Jackson Wednesday to hear the results of background checks performed by Baker and Associates LLC, the IHL’s search consultant.
“After the background checks with Jerry Baker, we will move on to the second round of interviews,” Ross said. “After those interviews, the likely scenario has the board voting to select the preferred candidate.”
Ross said the second-round interviews are tentatively scheduled for the first week of October. He said the board is hoping to announce the preferred MSU presidential candidate and have him or her arrive on campus by mid-October.
Under the IHL’s search guidelines, at least five candidates were submitted to the Board Search Committee.
Only the preferred candidate’s identity will be announced publicly.
After the announcement, the preferred candidate will then be brought to campus and will participate in open interviews with individual campus constituency groups.
Feedback from these discussions will be given to the Board Search Committee.
The candidate will either be named the next president of MSU, or the search will continue.
Vice president for student affairs and SAC chairman Bill Kibler was unavailable for comment.
Student Association President and SAC member Braxton Coombs said he could not comment on the search.
SAC members signed a code of ethics in August, pledging to keep the confidentiality of all candidates.
For more information on the MSU presidential search, visit mississippi.edu/ieo/msu_search.html.