The search for the next president of Missouri State University is moving forward. The search website launched Sept. 6 and has seen a lot of traffic.

Feedback will be incorporated into semifinalist interview questions

Getting input from students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors and community members is very important to the search committee. A community survey was available on the search website from Sept. 6 through Oct. 11. A State of the University town hall was held Oct. 11 and a major portion of the town hall was spent discussing the search and gathering input.

We appreciate everyone who participated in the survey and/or attended the town hall. We have compiled your responses and are using this information as we develop interview questions for the semifinalist candidates.

Survey results

We asked about the qualities and skills you’d like to see in the next president. We’re pleased to report 673 surveys were completed. The results of the quantitative questions are below.

Q1. Please select the option that best describes your current status.

Q2. Which of the following qualities are most important to the success of the next president?

Q3. What do you see as the university’s current challenges?

The last three questions were open ended so respondents could provide input regarding areas that weren’t covered in questions 2 and 3.

Q4. What attributes, skills and experience do you believe Missouri State’s next president should have?

We had 560 responses, 113 skipped this question.

Q5. What qualities of the university and the city of Springfield do you believe would motivate strong candidates to join our team?

We had 499 responses, 174 skipped this question.

Q6. Is there anything else you would like to share with the search committee?

We had 370 responses, 303 skipped this question.

Search timeline

On another note, the search committee met this month and will meet again in November to narrow down the number of applicants to a group of semifinalists we will meet in person.

The search timeline can be found on the search website. You can follow along with that to see where we are in the process. It’s also included below.

The search for the new president is very important to the future of the university. We are humbled and honored to be charged with this responsibility.

In the words of Clif – thank you for all you do for Missouri State.

The Presidential Search Committee