Purdue presidential search update: ‘It is a challenge’
Fresh off AD search, trustees push for more search survey responses. Plus, former Wabash Twp. trustee’s backpay, defamation lawsuit set for trial in 2027. What’s behind delays on SR225 bridge repairs.
More than 2,000 people have kicked in ideas about what Purdue should look for in its next president since trustees posted a campus survey in July, the chair of the university’s trustees said Friday.
Trustee Gary Lehman said the goal was to get 3,000 responses, especially more from faculty and students, as trustees look at a search that he said would take some time, while Purdue leans on the return of former President Mitch Daniels in the interim.
“Mitch reminds me just about daily that he doesn’t intend on doing this job forever, even though some of us would like him to do that, and so we are going to be moving on it,” Lehman said during a trustees meeting Friday.
“We really want everybody’s input,” Lehman said. “That will help us a lot to give us an idea of what we’re looking for.”
Mung Chiang, Purdue’s 13th president, left the university on June 30 after 3½ years in the job for a similar post at Northwestern University.
Lehman did not give a firm deadline to name the next president, saying the trustees intend “to be very selective.”
“Sitting presidents that have a great track record, you don’t find them very willing to move,” Lehman said. “If they’re very comfortable where they’re at, with the challenges that higher ed has now, if they’re getting along with their board, they’re getting along with their regents or governors, if they’re getting along with their faculty, if they’re getting along with their alumni, if they’re getting along with their legislators, if they’re getting along with the federal, if they’re getting along with the governors of their states, they’re saying, ‘I think I’ll sit still.’ I understand that. So, it is a challenge.”
Lehman said the initial responses to the survey showed a few trends in what the campus and alumni say they want the next president:
Financial fluency. “With the challenges that we have in higher ed, they realize that we need a leader that is strong in that area,” Lehman said.
Leadership and communication skills. “Obviously,” Lehman said.
A grasp on artificial intelligence and the impact of AI on teaching.
An ability to deal with changes in college athletics.
The survey asks a series of questions, including one that takes names of those participants would like to nominate for the position. Other survey questions include:
What professional experiences are most important for Purdue’s next president?
What specific skills are most important for Purdue’s next president?
What challenges or opportunities will Purdue’s next president need to tackle in their first three years?
If, as many believe, technology and social changes will transform the entire higher education system, what must Purdue do to respond and succeed in a radically different environment?
What specific questions should the board ask candidates for Purdue’s next president?
“The survey will help,” Lehman said. “It’ll help not only us select a president, but will also help that president coming in to have an idea of what the community is looking for and give them some orientation to begin with.”
TRIAL DATE SET IN FORMER TRUSTEE’S CONSPIRACY CLAIMS AGAINST WABASH TOWNSHIP
With fresh allegations of what Jennifer Rae Teising said is an ongoing conspiracy among Wabash Township officials, firefighters and media to defame her, a judge on Thursday set a 2027 trial date on a backpay and defamation case the former township trustee’s first filed in June 2025.
Thursday morning, Tippecanoe Circuit Court Judge Sean Persin said he planned to rule in 30 days on Wabash Township’s efforts to dismiss parts of an updated set of allegations, saying they came beyond the statute of limitations – just as he had ruled last year on claims Teising laid out in her original complaint.
Until then, Persin pinned down Teising and attorneys for Wabash Township to commit to a three-day trial, now set to start June 22, 2027, to settle a lingering dispute the includes backpay due after she was forced from office in early 2022.
Teising is pursuing a civil lawsuit against Wabash Township, a number of current and past township elected officials and fire department personnel over nearly a year of salary and benefits she lost when she was convicted in January 2022 of theft connected to questions about her residency during her time as township trustee.
In that criminal case heard in 2021, a judge ruled that when Teising – a Democrat elected as township trustee in 2018 – sold her West Lafayette home in June 2020, tried to recruit a replacement as trustee and told people she planned to move to Florida, her pursuit of “a nomadic RV lifestyle” for the rest of 2020 and parts of 2021 was the same as forfeiting the position. Teising argued during the trial that she’d been doing what others had done during the pandemic lockdown by working remotely. The court, though, ruled that forfeiting the position while collecting a paycheck was the same as theft, as she’d been charged.
Those criminal charges were later overturned by the Indiana Court of Appeals and vacated in February 2024 by the Indiana Supreme Court, which found she shouldn’t have faced criminal charges of theft.
Teising’s civil lawsuit claims past and present township officials conspired on a narrative that led to criminal charges and her ouster from office. She contended, among other things, that they’d kept tabs on her whereabouts through tracking her phone’s location without her permission or knowing and then sharing that information with local media, which sent a photographer to get a front-page picture of her staying at an RV park in Florida.
In a December 2025 ruling, Persin agreed with Wabash Township that her defamation claims were based on allegations that came beyond the statute of limitations.
In that ruling, Persin had given Teising and the township time to resolve remaining claims about backpay, which are due according to state law to public officials forced from office for convictions that are later dismissed. The Wabash Township Board voted in November 2025 to reauthorize a $39,992 payment it had offered to Teising a year earlier to comply with the state law, filing it with the county clerk until the matter was settled.
Not long after, Teising told the judge that the two sides were “galaxies” apart on negotiations to settle what she believed she was owed beyond the salary. Teising also argued at the time that she was asking for the court to return the money to the township and let it run that salary and benefits through normal payroll. She said that’s what the township had done when it settled a lawsuit with Fire Chief Ed Ward in April 2022, after she’d fired him while still trustee.
Teising demanded a jury trial to decide the issue, along with allegations of civil conspiracy, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, and intentional infliction of emotional distress in an amended complaint filed this spring. Teising argues that the people named in her civil lawsuit continued their behavior into 2023, 2024 and 2025, which should have refreshed the timetable on the statute of limitations on her defamation claims. Her initial lawsuit had been seeking as much as $820,000 in damages connected backpay, legal expenses from her criminal case and hits to her reputation and job prospects since her time as trustee.
On Thursday, Persin noted that Teising updated claims included allegations against members of the media and others not named in the lawsuit against Wabash Township. He pressed her on how the new claims showed actions that were fresh enough to qualify under the statute of limitations.
Persin asked how she was defining the conspiracy and whether it still existed if the initial intent was to get her out of office.
“Once you’re removed, that conspiracy is done – it doesn’t continue,” Persin said Thursday.
Teising argued that even if the motivation of those she said were targeting her had changed, “the behavior hasn’t.”
“They’re all still communicating with each other,” Teising said. “They’re all still trying to paint me in a light that is untruthful. They are still making comments that are untruthful. They are still misrepresenting the Supreme Court’s decision.”
Persin said Thursday that he hadn’t ruled on the merits of Teising’s allegations, only on whether they were timely.
In early January, Teising filed another civil lawsuit targeting the Journal & Courier, arguing that reporting in the Lafayette paper during Teising’s time as trustee and leading up to a criminal conviction that resulted in her ouster in 2022, followed by ongoing coverage later, was part of a coordinated attempt with township officials “to create a misleading and highly offensive public narrative.” That case is pending in Tippecanoe Circuit Court, with no hearing dates set as of this week.
THIS AND THAT/OTHER READS …
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT PURDUE’S NEXT ATHLETIC DIRECTOR
Rice AD Tommy McClelland was introduced Thursday at Purdue’s next athletic director, replacing Mike Bobinski, who is retiring after being in that position for the past decade. McClelland is expected to start Aug. 17, with Bobinski remaining in an advisory role through the end of 2026.
Purdue trustees signed off on a contract through 2032 that will pay McClelland a base salary of $1 million a year, with incentives of up to $300,000 based on incentives surrounding Big Ten and NCAA championships, NCAA tournament success, graduation success rates, grade point averages and other metrics. The contract includes $250,000 each year in deferred compensation, a vehicle, Lafayette Country Club membership, relocation expenses and travel to university sporting events. Purdue also agreed to pay Rice up to $980,000 to buy out McClelland’s contract there.
Among the coverage from McClelland’s introduction:
J&C reporter Sam King tracked McClelland’s trajectory that led him to Purdue: “Why Purdue picked Tommy McClelland for the top job.”
Journal & Courier@jconlineNew athletic director Tommy McClelland has creative plan to generate revenue Purdue desiredjconline.comNew athletic director Tommy McClelland has creative plan to generate revenue Purdue desired1:00 PM · Aug 7, 2026 · 227 ViewsMike Carmin, writing for his Greater Lafayette Sports Report on Substack, had more from Purdue interim President Mitch Daniels on how this AD search was different than the one that landed Bobinski a decade ago and what McClelland brings in an NIL revenue era of college sports: “Different type of search, IU comment, crawfish, relentless pursuit of NIL.”
In an interview with Brian Neubert at Gold and Black, McClelland talked about how he was anxious to get started: “I have to make sure that I become as much Purdue as possible quickly.” Here’s more: “Q&A: Incoming Purdue athletic director Tommy McClelland discusses football, revenue, long-term planning and more.”
McClelland went viral during his Thursday morning introductory press conference when he took a swipe at in-state rival IU, the reigning NCAA football champ: “New Purdue AD’s message: ‘If you don’t want to win championships, go to Indiana.’”
Here’s more from that press conference, via IndyStar’s Nathan Baird and Aaron Ferguson: “Purdue athletic director Tommy McClelland sets championship vision at press conference.”
WORK DELAYED AGAIN ON HISTORIC ONE-LANE INDIANA 225 BRIDGE
Work started this spring on the long-delayed repairs to a historic one-lane bridge on Indiana 225, between Battle Ground and Old Indiana 25, are on hold again, Indiana Department of Transportation officials confirmed this week.
According to INDOT, crews discovered issues with the bridge’s conditions that wouldn’t allow repairs until additional work was done under the four-span, 664-foot bridge built in 1912.
The project also hit a snag by the discovery of a federally protected mussel species near the bridge that led to a required environmental study to be sure that construction of a temporary causeway crews planned to build wouldn’t cause harm.
“INDOT and the contractor are currently waiting for the environmental team to finish their review, and no work can be done until this review is complete,” state Sen. Ron Alting, a Lafayette Republican, said this week. “INDOT is also waiting on a permit to install a temporary causeway. They expect to have a better timeline for work on the bridge by the end of August or at the start of October. … Like you, I am frustrated by this delay and will work diligently to find out what the state can do about this issue so that construction can get underway as soon as possible.”
The historic bridge has been closed since summer 2022, due to structural problems. Twice, Indiana Department of Transportation failed to get acceptable bids for a project to repair decking, curbs, approach slabs, railing and trusses on the bridge. That left the bridge blocked at either end by barricades.
When worked started in April, the bridge was expected to reopen by the end of 2027, with additional work at the site continuing into 2028. INDOT officials say that schedule is on hold.
Correction
An edition out Thursday night misstated the square footage parameters in the definition of a “large data center” in proposed zoning regulations being considered in Tippecanoe County. It should have read: “A ‘large data center’ would be anything bigger than 20,000 square feet and using more than 2 megawatts of power, including ‘hyperscale’ projects being proposed and built by proposed by Meta, Google, Microsoft and others.” That has been corrected in Thursday’s edition, which you can catch here if you missed it:
STILL IN PLAY: CHIP IN FOR CASAs FOR KIDS FUND, I’LL ADD A MONTH TO YOUR BASED IN LAFAYETTE SUBSCRIPTION
The 2026 edition of the Subaru CASA Cycling Challenge, a 24-hour at the two-mile Subaru of Indiana Automotive test track in Lafayette, rolls out Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 8-9. We’ll have a handful of riders on the Bangert Brothers team again this year in support of the CASAs for Kids Fund here in Tippecanoe County. Just like last year, I’ll add a free month to your full-access Based in Lafayette subscription for a donation of any amount to the Bangert Brothers team or team members. To donate and to learn more, here’s the link.
Thank you for supporting Based in Lafayette, an independent, local reporting project. Free and full-ride subscription options are ready for you here.
Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.