BEND, OR -- The Central Oregon's Community College Board of Directors has finalized its job description and hiring plan for the next school president. Board Chair Laura Craska Cooper is pleased with the current timeline. At Tuesday's meeting, she said, "From looking at the calendar of the last three searches that I've been involved with here, we are ahead of that on all of them. Which is great because it's a really competitive field."
They've narrowed down preferred qualifications, including experience leading a multi-campus school and making data-driven decisions. Board member Erin Foote-Morgan says other soft-skills are also needed, "Whoever comes has some experience in leading or participating in institutional growth around diversity, equity and belonging. That's a tough space if you don't have any experience in that work, to lead on that work."
The board agreed to create a 16-member committee, composed of COCC students and faculty, other local education leaders and workforce development experts.
Preston Pulliams is again helping COCC recruit candidates for the position. He says he's already talking to potential applicants, "Once it's listed on my website as a pending search, we start getting calls right away, for this particular job. And that's, by the way, good news."
He told the board, "Usually, I would expect anywhere from 40 to 50 applications for this particular job. As we work through those, we work with the committee to select anywhere from eight or nine, perhaps even 10 to be considered as semi-finalists." Those semi-finalists would then participate in virtual interviews, "The committee sits through those and at the end of those, again we gather again to determine of that group, who would we like to be considered, and advise and recommend to the board as finalists." Pulliams suggests they interview at least three finalists, "When you get to this competitive group, they may be in other searches and you may lose one along the way."
The board hopes to make an offer to their top candidate early next year. Dr. Laurie Chesley became COCC's sixth President in 2019 and plans to retire next June.
