Panel to interview applicants for JJC president

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Updated: December 18, 2011 5:19PM

JOLIET — Joliet Junior College officials are getting closer to picking a new president.

A 14-member presidential search committee will meet Thursday and Friday to interview applicants at the Joliet Holiday Inn and Conference Center.

By Friday night, the committee should have narrowed the list to a few finalists who will be recommended to the board of trustees, said board Chairwoman Barbara DeLaney.

“Basically, the responsibility of the search committee will be done, and the rest of it will be up to the board,” she said.

Trustees will interview the finalists in closed session meetings in late November or early December once the search committee makes its recommendations.

DeLaney said she hopes a new president will be chosen by the Dec. 13 board meeting. If not, the decision could be pushed to January.

“If we have to do it at the January board meeting, what a way to start the new year,” she said.

The Association of Community College Trustees, which is helping the school with its search, advised DeLaney not to release any details about the applicants at this point in the process.

However, DeLaney said she was pleased with the caliber of people applying for the job, which became vacant when former President Gena Proulx died in August after a three-year battle with cancer.

Frank Zeller, a retired community college financial officer from Peru, has been serving as interim president since Proulx died.

The search committee is made up of DeLaney, fellow Trustee Andrew Mihelich, Student Trustee Kayla Randolph-Clark and representatives of the college’s unions, administration and foundation.

ACCT is being paid $30,000 plus travel expenses to help JJC find its new president.

During the 2005 presidential search, local union leaders pushed for two in-house candidates to make the final cut.

Thirty people applied for the job and the committee narrowed the field to five including Proulx, who was the only candidate from out of state. She was hired in 2006.