UM Board of Curators Presidential Search Forum at MU on Monday

March 16, 2007

Story Contact:  Mary Jo Banken, 573-882-6211, BankenM@missouri.edu

COLUMBIA, Mo. — The University of Missouri Board of Curators will conduct an open public forum in Columbia on Monday, March 19, to discuss its search for the institution's next president. Members of the Board of Curators are attending these forums in their home regions to visit with citizens about the search process and solicit public comments. The forums are free and the public is invited and welcome.

"The Board of Curators has begun a nationwide search to identify and recruit the best possible person to become the University of Missouri's next president," said Don Walsworth of Marceline, chairman of the Board of Curators. "We seek an exemplary leader of national stature to guide the University during an era marked by great challenges and unlimited opportunities for higher education."

Walsworth and Curators Bo Fraser of Columbia and Warren Erdman of Kansas City are scheduled to attend Monday's forum in Columbia, which begins at 4 p.m. and runs until 5:30 p.m. in Room 208-C of Reynolds Alumni Center on the MU campus.

On Tuesday, March 20, presidential search forums are scheduled for Rolla and Springfield. The Rolla forum runs from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. in the Carver-Turner Room at the Havener Center on the University of Missouri-Rolla campus. The Springfield forum runs from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. that day at the Discovery Center Auditorium, 438 East St. Louis Street.

The Board of Curators is seeking a successor to President Elson S. Floyd, who is departing this spring to assume the presidency of Washington State University.