The Board of Regents for Higher Education is seeking applications and nominations for someone to become the 100,000-student system’s next leader.

The notice — which went out Friday — states those interested must apply by Feb. 15. The board will shortly thereafter conduct interviews and recommend a candidate to the governor. The anticipated start date for the next president is “on or about” July 1.

To conduct the search, the regents hired James H. McCormick, a consultant with ABG Search and former president of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. Connecticut’s recent higher education merger of four of the state’s bachelors-degree granting colleges, the dozen community colleges and the online university was modeled after Minnesota’s merged system.

To conduct the search, the regents are paying for McCormick $68,500.

One potential hiccup in landing the system’s next president could be that the incoming president will only have job security for one full school year. State law restricts the board from entering into a contract with a president that guarantees he keep his job after the governor leaves office. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s term ends in December 2014.

Some legislators have indicated they are interested in removing this “coterminous” appointment requirement from the law to remove the politics from higher education administration.

The last president of the board of regents resigned following a series of controversies that involved him unilaterally awarding double-digit percentage pay raises to central office staff, his six weeks spent working remotely from his home in Minnesota and the community college leaders being offered exits from their positions without the governing board’s knowledge.

The complete job listing can be viewed here. The regents set up an advisory board to help with “input and suggestions” surrounding the system’s next president.

Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.

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