The Oregon State University Board of Trustees will meet at 2 p.m. on May 20 to consider candidates to be interviewed as finalists to serve as OSU’s next president and be invited to participate in open forums with the university community on May 23 and 24.
The meeting will begin with an executive session to be held remotely. The board will discuss initial due diligence findings regarding candidates being considered to be invited to visit OSU. Following the executive session, the board will meet remotely in public session at 2:45 p.m. to announce the names of finalist candidates and the schedule of candidate forums, and vote on whether to reimburse candidate travel expenses.
The May 23 and 24 public forums with each finalist will be held in-person on the Corvallis campus, streamed live and recorded with a link for later viewing available on the presidential search website. The search website also will have a link for OSU community members and stakeholders to provide feedback on candidates. The schedule of events involving candidates will be announced May 20 and will be made available on available on the presidential search website.
The board expects to select the next president by June 7.
As part of the search, the board has engaged an independent contractor to conduct comprehensive background checks of candidates that have advanced to the final phase of the search. Background reviews of candidates also are being conducted by OSU’s Office of Human Resources and the search firm, Isaacson, Miller, as part of a broad due diligence process. This due diligence was a recommendation from a retrospective review of the university’s last presidential search process.
The board’s executive session is being held in keeping with Oregon law – ORS 192.660(2)(a) that allows a public body to meet in executive session to consider the employment of a public officer, employee, staff member or individual agent. According to Oregon law, media are allowed to attend an executive session but not report on the meeting or discussions held during the executive session. Given the remote meeting format, representatives of the news media should contact Steve Clark, OSU vice president for university relations and marketing, by emailing at steve.clark@oregonstate.edu by 5 p.m. Thursday, May 19 to attend the executive session portion of the meeting.
If special accommodation for the board meeting is required, please contact 541-737-8260 or trustees@oregonstate.edu at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting.
