Announcement Article
McDaniel College Begins President Search
from Carrol County Times
By Mary Scott, Landmark News Service Monday, September 21, 2009
Westminster, Maryland - The next president of McDaniel College will be a visionary leader, a strategic thinker and a lifetime learner.
He or she will also be able to identify with a broad range of people, including the students.
The Presidential Search Committee hasn’t found McDaniel’s next president yet, but it knows what qualities it’s looking for in the new person. This fall the committee is kicking the search up a notch by advertising for the position nationwide, holding focus groups with members of the McDaniel community and conducting preliminary interviews, according to the college’s Web site.
President Joan Develin Coley plans to retire at the end of the academic year, after 10 years in the position. The search started in the spring with the appointment of the Presidential Transition Committee and the Presidential Search Committee.
“What is important is the leadership prospectus on our Web site,” said Mary Lynn Durham, chairwoman of the search committee. “It’s prepared with a view of helping the person we’re searching for self-identify. We hope that people will read that and say, ‘That’s me.’ ”
Durham said the transition committee adopted the search criteria and considerations after a Board of Trustees meeting in August. In the process of developing these, Durham said she spoke with James E. Lightner, who wrote a book on the college’s history called, “Fearless and Bold.”
“He said, interestingly enough, that each of the presidents of the college [was a] totally different [person] … but each president had been a good president for the time,” Durham said.
The college is getting advice in choosing a president from the consulting firm of Myers McRae. The Georgia-based firm specializes in placing leaders and visionaries in colleges and universities across the nation, according to its Web site at www.myersmcrae.com.
“Our role in the search is to help with materials to notify potential candidates, to be active in the recruitment phase of the search and assist the college in the evaluation of candidates,” said David Gring, senior vice president of Myers McRae. “We assist search [committees] in the evaluation of candidates but it is the search committee that actually does the evaluation.”