Trustee: Next Purdue president doesn’t have West Lafayette on their radar, yet
Trustees celebrate 3½ years with President Mung Chiang, before he heads to a similar role at Northwestern. A few hints offered on search for Purdue's next president.
On a morning when Purdue trustees told departing President Mung Chiang that he would always be considered a Boilermaker, even as moves on July 1 for a similar role leading Northwestern University, the chair of the trustees said Friday that the next Purdue president likely doesn’t have the West Lafayette campus on their radar right now.
“We’ve already had a lot of nominations – people coming forward, saying, ‘How about this person, how about that person?’” Gary Lehman, trustees chair, said during a regularly scheduled trustees meeting, Chiang’s last at Purdue.
“We’ll take those seriously,” Lehman said. “Most likely, the person that we end up choosing, he or she, is not going to be sitting there looking for jobs. They’re going to be ones that are very comfortable where they’re at, very well established and never really thought about leaving where they’re at to come to Purdue. So, that’s our job to find that individual that’s outstanding in their field and not necessarily looking for an opportunity, but we’re going to convince them this is the best place for them to come.”
Trustees took no formal action Friday on a search committee or parameters of the search, itself. Lehman said the board was “working through that now” and would have updates in the coming weeks.
But Lehman more than hinted that any search structure will be tightly wrapped.
