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The committee is seeking applicants and nominees responses to see if their names can be discussed in an executive session.

“I am already sensing a cross list of names beginning to surface,” Johnsen said. “Most names are coming from colleagues on campus or others with strong Iowa ties.”

At the committee’s third meeting, Johnsen said he has spoken with four sitting university presidents with Iowa connections for ideas and suggestions.
The 13-person committee entertained comments from interim UI president Gary Fethke, senior associate to the president and a senior vice president of the UI Foundation Susan Shullaw and Marcella David and Jennifer Modestou from the
Office of Affirmative Action.

“It is important early in the search to ensure you have a diverse pool of candidates,” said UI law professor Jonathan Carlson, who adjourned the meeting for Johnsen, who had to depart early. “With regards to President Fethke, David Johnsen invited him because he has been doing the job and can give his perspective on what it is like.”

Diversity, whether in hiring a woman or minority or hiring someone who considers diversity issues a priority, should be among the key parameters for the search committee, David said. She added that diversity, broadly defined, is critical to leadership and education.

“You could ask them, ‘What are your experiences with diverse communities? What are your goals for diversity?’” David said. “It is really a value the university em-braced in its strategic plan. The university has embraced this as a key value.”
Navigating the complexities of UI’s health care operations has been the biggest challenge for Fethke in his interim role.

“If they are going to lead the University of Iowa, you better be sure they know something about the sciences,” Fethke said, an economist. “But I have enjoyed that as much as anything on the job.”

Fethke also spoke of identifying a value proposition — a way of articulating what UI is good at internally and externally to donor and job prospects. In many ways, this mirrored the committee’s ongoing effort to craft a message to attract candidates.

The committee is charged with presenting four finalists to the Iowa state Board of Regents for selection of the next UI president. Johnsen has targeted July 1 to complete the search.

Former UI president David Skorton announced more than a year ago that he was leaving to become Cornell University president. Regents disbanded the initial search committee after a secretive seven months with a 6-2 vote on Nov. 17 that rejected four finalists.