The search committee for hiring the new Baker University Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs is hosting on-campus visits for four candidates to select someone for the position.

“All four candidates were people that the committee had an interest in spending more time with, so it is that additional time here with all our constituencies represented that will make the difference,” Committee Chair Martha Harris said. “They all have the qualifications, so it will be the one that best fits with what they find here that is our finalist.”

The on-campus interviews began Tuesday and are scheduled to go until next Tuesday.

Each candidate will follow the same schedule, which consists of candidates arriving on the Baldwin City campus one at a time.

Each of the candidates will stay the night in Baldwin City their first evening and the visit will begin the next morning with breakfast with University President Pat Long, followed by a series of meetings and visits with a variety of administration, staff and faculty.

Students will have the opportunity to meet with each candidate during lunch on their respective visits, and will have the chance to provide feedback to the search committee on how they feel about the candidates.

“There’s a survey tool so that students and faculty and anyone that meets the candidates will be able to go online and provide their response (and) feedback,” McCrary said. “We will have all that data. So when the search committee visits with the president, we will all be looking at the responses that were given about each candidate.”

Some students are looking for a candidate who can fill the shoes of current Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Rand Ziegler, who will be taking a new position as Dean of Institutional and Faculty Development.

“(Ziegler) has done a fairly good job in his position … so finding someone with a similar background who is willing to take things to another step,” junior Patrick King said.

After the campus visit, each candidate will then travel to Overland Park, where they will have dinner with the Board of Trustees the second night. They will stay overnight in Overland Park and visit the Baker University School of Professional and Graduate Studies and Graduate School of Education.

“So, they’re basically getting two nights and two days, or a day and a half,” McCrary said. “So, each candidate will spend a day here in Baldwin City and then a couple of hours the next morning at the Overland Park campus.”

McCrary said after the candidate visits are completed, the search committee should have the candidates narrowed down “very quickly.”

“Once we get feedback, based on what students, faculty and then the department chairs and the executive cabinets and then as others then chime in,” McCrary said. “… my hope is that it will become really clear and that one person will just really stand out.”