You are here: American University Board of Trustees June 22, 2016 Memo

AU Memo Letterhead

Memorandum June 22, 2016

To:
American University Community
From:
Jeff Sine, Chairman, Presidential Search Committee
Subject:
Final Opportunity Statement and Search Committee Update

I provide this summer update on the search for AU's next president as the committee continues its ongoing work with our Spencer Stuart consultants. The committee is making strong progress and proceeding according to schedule.

The committee met on June 21 and approved the final version of the opportunity statement (position profile) which we will use to build a pool of prominent candidates. We appreciate the valuable input on the draft that we circulated for campus comment and are proud of the story it tells about AU's fundamental strengths, success trajectory, and the tremendous opportunity that awaits our next president. We received comments from faculty, staff, students, and alumni and adopted many of these ideas in the final version.

We also appreciate the perspectives gained via the listening sessions held at the end of spring semester and the comments provided via email for our consideration. We are gratified with the basic alignment of key considerations that will guide our work going forward; there is tremendous appreciation for what AU has achieved and eager anticipation of what AU can yet accomplish under our next president.

We will continue to meet through the summer and plan to have initial interviews with candidates in late September. As we have explained in previous communications, as we move into a more sensitive stage of the search, confidentiality will be critical to preserve the quality of the candidate pool.

We embrace the values of transparency and openness that AU cherishes, but we must balance this with the need to build the strongest possible pool of candidates. We continue to try to balance our twin objectives of transparency, while also respecting the confidentiality of our candidates. Many highly qualified candidates will pursue the position only if they are assured complete confidentiality. Because of this, we ask for the AU community's understanding of our need for complete confidentiality as the committee enters this critical next phase of its work.

We will communicate with the community as the search continues and post updates to the search website, and we welcome your ideas, questions, and candidate nominations via PresSearch@american.edu and AmericanPres@spencerstuart.com.