Change is on the horizon as Park University begins its search for its next university president.

According to Park University Board of  Trustees Chair Ann Mesle, an official presidential search committee has been formed and is starting the process of seeking and interviewing candidates.

“Our committee has been selected and consists of faculty, staff, administration, students, trustees, some from Park Distance Learning and some from outside the Park community,” said Mesle. “We wanted to make sure we had a large group of different people from different areas of Park and outside Park to be a part of the committee.”

Mesle will serve on the committee. Another member of the committee is Julie Wilson, executive vice president and chief people officer for Cerner Corporation.

Wilson will serve as chair for the presidential search committee and has experience with similar committees.

“I have been a member of the Park board of trustees for a number of years and Board Chair Ann Mesle asked that I take on this role,” said Wilson. “Given my position as executive vice president and chief people officer with Cerner, I have quite a bit of experience in recruiting talent at all levels into a high performance organization and I’m hoping to apply some of our techniques to find the best possible candidates to consider for Park’s next president.”

The committee will search for a variety of characteristics in the new president, according to Mesle.

“Our main focus as a committee will be defining what leadership and experience we want from our next president,” she said. “We want someone who is a proven leader, focuses on and has a passion for education, understands academic and student success and really understands our core values here at Park.”

Interim Park University President David Fowler, who will not have an official role with the presidential search committee, said there are many qualities committees like this should seek in a candidate such as leadership experience, communication skills, fund-raising experience, high integrity and strong core values.

“I would like the committee to focus on finding the best candidate for the role of president without a prerequisite of whether the candidate has had a previous career in higher education or not,” he said.

For the past five years, Dr. Michael Droge served as Park University’s president. This past July, Droge was appointed as the university’s first ever chancellor.

“Dr. Droge had so many successes during his presidency at Park,” said Mesle. “He was the right president at the right time. We hope to build on his successes with the next president.”

Fowler has served in the position since as interim president through this academic year and until a new president is announced.

Until then, the committee has plenty of work ahead to make the search for Park’s new president successful.

“We’ll create the job description and start to advertise and announce we are searching for a new president and set a deadline for when resumes need to be submitted by,” said Mesle.

“Once that is done, those resumes will go to a core group of committee members who will decide who they think match our skills set the best. Usually, the original number of candidates will be reduced down to about 20 or so.”

Mesle also said she anticipates the committee will have other groups of members conduct candidate interviews on the Parkville campus.

“We want to make sure each group of the committee has an opportunity to listen to each candidate, ask any questions they may have and really get an idea of that person as a whole,” she said.

“Our goal is to have someone leading the university who is exciting to work with and is ready to help the university continue to succeed.”
While this experience is nothing new to Wilson, she said she is excited to get started working with the committee and finding Park’s next president.

“Park has so many wonderful attributes and so much to offer to students, it is important to have the right person at the helm,” Wilson said.

Look for further information and more updates on the presidential search committee in future issues of The Stylus.