Our view: At this Monday’s student town hall meeting, we need to do more than suggest what we want in our next president. We need to demand that our input is actually considered, and we need to demand the search be open. An open search is the best way to ensure our input is actually considered.

Academic Search, the firm tasked with finding our next president, is hosting “town hall” meetings this Monday and Tuesday to gather input from students, faculty, staff and community members before the firm drafts an ad they will use in the presidential search.

The idea is to include the community in the search, but we worry that these meetings are only meant to make us feel like our opinions matter more than anything.

We encourage students to not only speak about the qualities they want in a president, but to ask the Academic Search Complete representatives how they will use our input and what they will do to prove we are listened to.

We do not want to be critical of Academic Search before the process moves further ahead, but it is imperative that we all remain skeptical for the entirety of the search.

This town hall meeting is one of our first opportunities to set a precedent that we will not roll over and let an outside firm dictate a search that will affect this university and the city for years to come.

VIEW INTERVIEW with Debbie Barrow regarding search.