Purdue search includes undergraduate

While the IU Student Association continues to lobby the administration for a more active role in choosing the University's next president, students at Purdue are much more pleased with their role in choosing that college's next leader.\nPurdue announced last week the creation of a 14-member presidential search committee to seek out a replacement for Martin C. Jischke, who has served as Purdue's president for six years and will step down in 2007. \nPurdue's committee is comprised of five members of the board of trustees, compared to two on the IU committee. The Purdue committee also features a student member from the flagship West Lafayette campus -- a move many students at IU-Bloomington wish the 13-member IU committee would make as well.\n"We are very lucky to have a student on the committee," said Purdue Student Government Vice President Mary Koehn. \nPSG President Jonathan Foltz is serving as the student member of the committee.\nPurdue administers three satellite campuses, opposed to IU's eight.\n"(Foltz) is an elected member of student government, so clearly he represents the students well," said Jeanne Norberg, director of Purdue's News Service. "We always try to include students in any major decision like this."\nAnother key difference in the search for a successor at Purdue is that Jischke is personally holding forums around the state asking the Purdue constituency what initiatives they would like his successor to continue.\nAt a forum to discuss the search for IU's next president on Friday, many faculty members and alumni used Jischke as an example of what they would like to see in the University's next leader.\nIUSA has lobbied the presidential search committee to include a representative from the Bloomington campus because of the IU president's special duties on the Bloomington campus, but that request has repeatedly been ignored.\n"The difference between the IU and Purdue searches is that (the West Lafayette) campus doesn't have a vested interest in the next president," IUSA president Betsy Henke said. "The IU president acts as CEO of this campus, not just president of the University."\nIUSA has repeatedly criticized the choice of IU-South Bend graduate student Michael Renfrow as the only student member of the committee because of his lack of involvement on the Bloomington campus.\nTrustee Sue Talbot, who chairs the IU committee, has said that it is having enough trouble finding times to meet and more members would only complicate scheduling. She has also said that the more members there are, the more confidentiality issues arise.\nHenke said that more students are becoming aware of the lack of a Bloomington representative in choosing IU's next president and have been petitioning IUSA to do more.\n"We need to have a say in picking the person who's going to run our campus," she said.\nIU President Adam Herbert has said he will retire, at the latest, when his contract runs out in 2008, but he could step down earlier if a replacement is found before then.\nIvy Tech is also searching for a new president, but the details of its search have not yet been announced.