Dear Luther College Colleagues,
Over the past three weeks following President Carlson’s announcement of her retirement, we have reached out and spoken with a broad cross-section of the Luther community to listen to your thoughts, perspectives and insights about the presidential search process we are embarking on, and the profile of potential candidates for the next president of Luther College. It is inspiring to hear your individual and collective passion, commitment and support for Luther College; refreshing to hear your candid and honest thoughts, concerns and recommendations; and, gratifying to hear your willingness to support this process in a variety of ways.
While we continue to have these preliminary conversations, in parallel, we have begun interviewing academic search consultants/firms to partner with us in this process. Each of these individuals/firms have deep knowledge and specialized experience in leading and successfully concluding searches to identify leadership for a variety of liberal arts colleges and universities, which is critical to ensure we have a robust and successful search process.
We will make our final selection of the search consultant/firm by the end of July. Over the next several weeks, we will establish the search committee which, in collaboration with our academic search consultant/firm, define the profile, qualifications and experience we are seeking in a new president. Our timeline remains to begin the formal search process this fall, identify and select the final candidate by the end of the 2018-19 academic year, transition over the summer and have the new president in place for the start of the 2019-20 academic year.
If you have thoughts/recommendations on potential candidates, please continue to forward those names to Bob Paulson at [email protected] and we will pass those names on to the search firm that is selected. Once the search consultant/firm is in place, you will be invited to send the names of potential candidates directly to the search firm for consideration and screening.
Thank you for all you do for our students and for Luther College. Please continue to address any questions regarding the search to Wendy Davidson or Bob Paulson at [email protected].
Soli Deo Gloria,
Wendy Davidson, ‘92, Board Chair
Bob Paulson, ‘78, Board Vice Chair; Chair, Institutional Planning & Board Affairs committee; Chair, Presidential Search Committee