John Moore, the chair of Northwest Missouri State University’s Board of Regents and the chair of the University’s Presidential Search Committee, has released the following statement regarding the progress of the search.

For more information about Northwest’s presidential search, visit www.nwmissouri.edu/presidentsearch/.

As chair of the Northwest Presidential Search Committee, I am pleased to provide the Northwest community this update on the progress of the search.

Following the gathering of input from numerous stakeholder groups in late August, the search prospectus was developed and then approved by the Search Committee and the Board of Regents in early September. This kicked off a roughly 10-week period during which the search firm identifies potential candidates, contacts them and ascertains their interest in pursuing the position. As of last week, the search firm had contacted each of the potential candidates to be referred thus far, and they were in the process of contacting more than 200 additional candidates whom they identified separately. They expect these numbers to grow in the coming few weeks. 

Feedback from the candidates thus far has been good, with respondents expressing a positive impression of the University. Of those who indicated they would not be applying, the primary reasons cited were relocation issues and family ties. Initial applications are beginning to flow in at a rate the search firm expected for this stage of the process.

In the first week of December, the Search Committee has scheduled a meeting to review all of the applications that have been approved by the search firm to identify a smaller group of candidates with whom to conduct Zoom interviews. These candidates will be interviewed by the Search Committee in January to identify a list of finalists, probably three to five in number, who will be invited to the campus for public interviews with all Northwest stakeholders. It is currently envisioned that these public sessions will occur in February. The feedback of the public sessions will then be gathered and provided to the Board of Regents for a final selection.

We continue to expect that an offer can be made sometime in the spring, with the goal of having a new president who can start no later than July 1, 2023.