Committee faced an arduous task

The search committee began the daunting task for the new president in November, when they were announced by the IU board of trustees at their monthly meeting. The board was composed of 17 members, including faculty, administrators and a Bloomington student.\nTrustee Stephen Ferguson chaired the presidential search committee, which included Robert Eno, co-chair of the Bloomington Faculty Council, Blair Greenberg, former IU Student Association treasurer, and Ken Beckley, president and CEO of the IU Alumni Association.\nTrustee Jamie Belanger said it was important students were represented on the committee.\n"They're definitely a vital part of the University," Belanger said.\nTrustees President Frederick Eichhorn, who was primarily in charge of forming the committee, called the task of searching for a new president one of the most important jobs the board will ever experience.\nThe trustees tried to keep the committee to a manageable size, while at the same time attempted to touch a variety of constituencies, Ferguson said. \nThey said they're looked for someone that had strong leadership and would be able to effectively work with the Indiana state legislature.\nThe committee first met on Dec. 11, declaring that the search would not just be in the field of academia.\nIn late January, Ferguson said the consulting firm, Baker, Parker and Associates, had contacted 152 nominees thus far, looking at qualified candidates from academia and the private sector.\nBy February, close to 300 nominees had been contacted by the Atlanta-based consulting firm. The nominations were compiled from people the firm had sought, nominations sent to the firm and from forums held by the search committee.\nBy March, all of the candidates had been contacted by the search committee and were in the process of being graded to evaluate the nominees.\nIn April, the search committee interviewed between seven and 15 final candidates at the Westin O'Hare Hotel outside Chicago.\nThe search, which had a deadline of July 1, had been reported to be off schedule, but actually finished with Herbert being announced almost a month early.