The Special Committee on the Nomination of a President met for the first time yesterday to discuss the upcoming search for President John T. Casteen, III's replacement.\nThe Board of Visitors manual dictates that no fewer than five people should be on the committee, and the current search committee consists of nine members of the Board of Visitors, two former rectors, the chair of the faculty senate, five professors and two students.\nRector John Wynne said the original five was too narrow and that the current 19-person committee is "broader than any single discipline or interest," allowing for more diverse opinions and viewpoints.\nAs outlined yesterday, the search will consist of five stages: process design and staffing, input and information gathering, profile and qualification development, recruitment and selection. Wynne said the process design will be finished before early October, while input gathering started a week ago.\nAlso present at the meeting was Bill Funk of R. William Funk & Associates, who is serving as a consultant to the committee. Funk has initiated the recruitment process, though the committee will not begin to review candidates until it has established a list of qualifications.\nFunk and his firm were chosen because of their experience in the southeast, success in institutions in the Association of American Universities and extensive networking, said Leonard Sandridge, executive vice president and chief operating officer.\nA Web site about the presidential search also has been created for the general community and potential candidates, Sandridge said. At the Web site, accessible via the University's homepage, people can learn more about opportunities for involvement and offer commentary.\n"Every effort has been made to gather information from all aspects of the University," Sandridge said, adding that the committee has received a tremendous amount of input.\nFaculty Senate Chair Ann Hamric said she has begun obtaining input from senators, former senators and professors about the presidential search, and plans to report her findings to the committee Sept. 1.\nStudent Council President John Nelson and Engineering Graduate student Jen Warner, meanwhile, the student representatives to the committee, also will collect input through a student advisory group of 21 other students. This group includes members from large-scale organizations around Grounds, including the Honor Committee, the University Judiciary Committee, resident staff, class councils, Greek organizations, graduate programs and minority student organizations. Nelson and Warner will meet with the group for the first time today.\nThe search is "generating more excitement and interest nationally of any I've seen in the past five years," Funk said, adding that of the 300 presidential searches he has worked on, this is the most important.\nBoard member Austin Ligon expressed a similar sentiment, noting that as a "prototypical model of what a public university should be," the University's search is important to many institutions because "the rest of the world looks to us to see how do we achieve the success that we achieve."\nWynne said the presidential search is a "wonderful opportunity to set the stage for the next elevation of the institution," and "the most important thing we do for our University."\nThe committee will begin holding public forums today from 10 a.m. to noon in the Newcomb Hall Ballroom and 3:30 to 5:30 in the Zehmer Hall auditorium.
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