The Rev. John Malone said in an Undergraduate Student Government-sponsored public forum Thursday that the university’s presidential search committee is interviewing eight candidates for the job.
Malone said names of the “highly-qualified individuals” will remain confidential throughout the process.
“You guarantee a much deeper pool when you have high confidentiality so that people who are in good positions, although they would like to go to something different, don’t have to expose themselves because only one person is going to get the job,” Malone said.
Although there has been no word about whether the candidates’ names will be made public until the president is announced, Malone said certain St. Thomas groups who aren’t on the search committee will still have an opportunity to give general input about the next president.
“They’re not meeting the candidates, but a person from the (presidential selection) committee is meeting with various groups,” Malone said.
Malone didn’t specify which groups would get the opportunity. Malone said the committee will next cut the group to five candidates and then select the university’s next president from that group.
Junior Megan Matheny, USG vice president of public relations, moderated the panel of administrators who responded to various questions students submitted. Matheny said one question students wanted to know was if Information Resources and Technologies has done anything to increase slow internet speeds in the residence halls.
Sam Levy, vice president of IRT, said the university’s connection to the Internet was doubled in late September from 500 megabits per second to one gigabit per second.
“The numbers that we are seeing now suggest that bandwidth is more than adequate in the residence halls,” Levy said.
Susan Huber, vice president of academic affairs, addressed students’ interest for a pre-health program at St. Thomas. Huber said the university has been considering the implications of opening a medical school sometime in the future, but that finding facilities, recruiting students and faculty and coordinating the complex requirements for residences and internships make the idea costly.
“It seems to me that the cost … would make us really think long and hard about whether or not that would be a good thing for St. Thomas to do,” Huber said.
The Rev. Dennis Dease said the university is still exploring the effect an ever-evolving medical field might have on the ability to properly train students. Dease said today’s medical students are being trained as specialty practitioners rather than as general practitioners.
“That was one of the questions we’ve asked: ‘Would we be preparing practitioners in a way that might not be adequate for what the roles will become in five or 10 years?’” Dease said.
Mark Vangsgard, vice president for business affairs and chief financial officer, addressed student concerns about the limited night hours at the on-campus eateries. Vangsgard said Scooter’s and Summit Market Place only bring in $200 per night and the university doesn’t want to pass the costs of staffing the extra-late hours.
“It just doesn’t seem to be very sensible,” Vangsgard said.
Freshman Johannah Saari said she was particularly interested in hearing from administrators about issues dealing with money.
“It’s nice to hear it from them,” Saari said. “Not, I heard it from this person that said this. It’s nice to hear it from the people who are making the decisions.”
Less than 40 students attended the forum and besides the submitted questions Matheny presented to the panel, three other students asked questions of the administrators. Matheny said despite low participation, the event is important to hold annually.
“People can tell their friends that have these similar questions,” Matheny said. “Now we have the information to distribute to among the student body. I think a lot of people want to ask these questions, but they never have the opportunity.”
Heidi Enninga can be reached at enni5264@stthomas.edu.