If all goes well, Allen Community College could have a new president in place by January.
The board of trustees agreed to hire the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT), of Washington, D.C., to recruit its next president. ACCT is a national nonprofit educational association founded in 1972. Since then, the organization has helped with the search for more than 750 chief executive officers, including chancellors and presidents.
Allen is on the hunt for a new president after Bruce Moses’ resignation in June. He had served nearly two years in the role, taking over after the retirement of longtime President John Masterson in 2022. Masterson was asked to return in an interim role until a new president is hired.
According to a proposal, ACCT will work with Allen trustees to form a local search committee and arrange meetings, interviews, campus visits and other services. The organization will recruit potential candidates using a variety of resources and advertising, and review candidates it forwards to the search committee. They also help the board negotiate any hiring offers and offer advice during the transition.
The fee is $42,500 plus travel expenses.
A proposed timeline would begin in September with open public forums to solicit input to help trustees draft a “presidential profile” to post online, and form a search committee. Applications would be due Oct. 28.
The search committee would meet multiple times in November and would select three to four finalists to bring to the college for tours, public forums and final interviews during the week of Dec. 2. The goal is to select a new president by mid-December, with a targeted start-date of early January — just in time for the spring semester.
ALLEN HAS some experience with ACCT. The board hired the group earlier this year to conduct an evaluation for Moses, but he resigned before that process was completed.
For its president search, the board also considered proposals from Gold Hill Associates of Jackson, Miss., and LeadExec of Grand Marais, Mich. Trustees quickly ruled out LeadExec because their proposed fee of $70,000 plus expenses was significantly higher than the others.
Gold Hill’s fee of $41,500 was comparable to ACCT but the timeline wouldn’t approve hiring a new president until late February.
