IUN Chancellor might move up

GARY -- The chancellor of Indiana University Northwest is a finalist for the presidency of Delta State University.\nBruce Bergland, chancellor at IUN since July 1999, is one of four finalists for the position and has a final interview at the school's Cleveland, Miss., campus Wednesday.\nBergland and former Delta State President David Potter, who left the post in March when he was appointed Mississippi's commissioner of higher education, once co-authored a paper.\n"Our former president and Dr. Bergland are professional acquaintances. They wrote a professional paper together, but I don't know that they ever worked together in a close capacity," said Paul Starkey, dean of graduate and continuing education at Delta State.\nStarkey also is chairman of the local advisory committee that is assisting in the search for a new university president.\nStarkey's committee whittled a field of 48 candidates down to 10 semifinalists. The Institute of Higher Learning, which governs Mississippi's state education system, selected four finalists and will select the next president.\nThe other three finalists also are being interviewed next week.\nStarkey said an announcement could come before the end of the month.\nAccording to the Delta State Web site, the other finalists are Kendall A. Blanchard, former president of Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo.; John M. Hilpert, president of Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D.; and Judith S. Prince, interim executive vice chancellor of the University of South Carolina-Spartanburg.