By Sebastian Juarez
Staff Writer

The search for a new California State University, Dominguez Hills president is in full gear, and could be wrapped up as soon as next month, according to a spokesperson for the California State University Chancellor’s Office.

Mike Uhlenkamp, senior director of Public Affairs at the Chancellor’s Office, told the Bulletin that the CSUDH presidency search is “rounding the final turn” and will likely be concluded in March.

Current CSUDH President Willie J. Hagan, who was appointed in 2013, announced in September last year that he is retiring at the end of the 2017-18 school year.

Since then, two committees have been tasked with finding his replacement. The six-person California State University Board of Trustees committee for the selection of the president is chaired by Peter J. Taylor. There is an also a 10-person advisory committee that consists of CSUDH faculty, administration, community members, and one student—CSUDH Associated Students Inc. president Justin Blakely.

Both committees work as a unified group. Blakely said last week that the committees would meet Feb. 6  with hopes of naming a handful of finals for the job. The finalist will then be flown out and interviewed before advancing to the final round of interviews with the CSU Board of Trustees, which will make the final choice.

Blakely said that he has confidence that the presidential search system will lead the committees to the ideal president for CSUDH. He says the two committees work side by side, going through a number of applicants that are provided by Witt/ Kieffer, an executive search firm based in Irvine.

Blakely said it is possible that Hagan’s replacement will be named sometime in March.

Uhlenkamp  said the goal of the search is to “cast as wide a net as possible”   in terms of potential candidates, so that the ultimate choice would be the right person for the job. While there are no exact criteria or requirements for the job of CSUDH president, both Blakely and Uhlenkamp said that they were looking for an individual whose main focus was student success.

Blakely also said he hopes that the candidate would be creative when it comes to budgeting, so that he or she would be able to “mitigate the (effects) of student fees” that have consistently been increasing.