With President Doug Bennet’s announcement last spring that he will step down at the end of this academic year, the University has recently begun forming a presidential search committee charged with identifying candidates.

The committee will be composed of eighteen people, including ten trustees, five faculty members, two students, and Vice President Peter Patton. As of yet, the faculty members and one of the student members have not been determined.

“This is a search committee, not a selection committee—the idea being for the committee to give some choices to the Board [of Trustees],” said trustee and committee chair Kofi Appenteng ’81, P’07. “The board’s decision-making rests with the full board, not in any one individual. Once we’ve completed the search and presented the candidates to the board, the board will then deliberate on that and makes its selection. How the board is going to do that is completely up to the board.”

In a bid to appear responsive to student input as part of a self-styled community outreach, the committee will involve WSA Vice President Brittany Mitchell ’07 in its deliberations and an additional student soon to be selected.

Additionally, the committee will host open forums on campus, and has established a website for nominations and comments from the community.

“When people post their comments, it’s all going to be part of the record the committee will have to take a look at and see what the results of the outreach are,” Appenteng said.

Mitchell is confident that the desires of the student body will be adequately represented in the committee’s deliberations. She and another student will bear the responsibility for advocating the student position, should it differ from the others.

“As a student I like to speak [from] student perspectives,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell will be available by e-mail during the process, but will also seek other venues for student input, such as open campus-center hours.

Students, however, are far from the only variable in the decision-making process. The committee will also solicit the opinion of alumni, holding talks in various parts of the country to generate involvement.

“We’re going to be asking [alumni] what they think Wesleyan needs at this time, and then based on that input and committee deliberations we’re going to come up with a mission specification which will describe where the University is today, what the plans are that are in place right now in terms of our strategy, and the kind of qualities that we’re looking for in the next president,” Appenteng said.

It is not clear how much weight will be given to each perspective—student, faculty, alumni, trustee—in the decision-making process. If Appenteng has his way, this issue will be rendered moot by a smooth synthesis of vision by the deliberations of the committee, integrating what he hopes will be essentially compatible viewpoints across the University community.

“I’m not sure there will necessarily need to be a great deal of balancing,” he said. “Just because somebody is a student or a member of the faculty or an alum doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to have a different view of what Wesleyan needs.”

Appenteng says that feedback from outreach efforts will be compiled to find consistent themes and a common vision.

Talk is already beginning, however, in the crucial area of opinion—which qualities to seek in the candidates. Mitchell turns to Bennet as a model for certain aspects of what she would like to see in the next president.

“In trustee meetings he often went against the trustees in order to represent students and student life on campus now,” Mitchell said. “At some universities there isn’t quite the precedent of students being as involved in running the University as there is here, and it’s important to have a president that wants to continue that tradition. I think it’s important to have a president that understands what differentiates Wesleyan from, say, Amherst and Williams—kind of what makes us unique and wants to continue that as well, rather than sort of mainstreaming us.”

To aid its search, the University has enlisted the expertise of Jennifer Bol and Michele Haertel from the international executive search firm Spencer Stuart. According to the Spencer Stuart website, Bol leads the firm’s education department and has participated in the search for the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the dean of Columbia School of Business, and the president of Boston University. Haertel has worked in human resources at Christie’s and at Pepsi. Under their contract to Wesleyan, they are barred from speaking about the role they will play in the selection process.

“Confidentiality is important to protect the process of recruitment and to protect candidates, most of whom are working in other jobs,” wrote James Horton, senior director of Robert Marston Corporate Communications, the public relations firm that represents Spencer Stuart, in an e-mail. “They could jeopardize their current careers if it was known they were considering taking another job. Since only one person is going to be chosen, that means the other candidates will remain where they are. It’s important to protect them.”

The role of the firm will likely be to scour the field of those qualified for the position and provide information on candidates to the committee and Board of Trustees, according to Appenteng. In an e-mail he sent out to the University community, Appenteng noted that the firm is needed to bring in added expertise and searching power at a time when other universities are also seeking new leaders.

“The evaluation of all the candidates is a committee responsibility,” he said. “It’s our hope that one of the things Spencer Stuart can do is help us identify some candidates that maybe we wouldn’t be aware of and also help us better understand the particular candidates’ backgrounds.”

The selection of Spencer Stuart was made with student input.

“I know that Arjit Sen [’07], who is the senior class president—was involved in choosing that and felt that they are the right company for the job,” Mitchell said. “I feel confident in his opinion.”

The committee will begin the search once it has gathered the requisite membership. It is anticipated to be a yearlong process, the results of which may not be known until May or later.

“Conversations have already begun with students, faculty, alumni, and trustees about possible timeframes,” Appenteng said. “The past is pretty helpful. The last presidential search concluded in the end of April or May. I’m hoping that the committee can be fully formed by the end of this month and then, as one of the first orders of business, go over the suggested calendar to try to figure out what the timeline is.”

More information on the search and how to provide input can be found at http://www.wesleyan.edu/presidentialsearch/.