The search for the next University of Wisconsin chancellor kicked off Friday afternoon with the first official meeting of the Search-and-Screen Committee.

Most members of the Search-and-Screen Committee and members of the special five-member Board of Regents committee discussed how the process of finding the new chancellor would work and what their task will be over the next few months.

�I think it is important that anyone you present as a finalist, you feel confident can do the job,� UW System President Kevin Reilly said. �You want somebody that is a student-centered chancellor. With 40,000 students on this campus, we want somebody who thinks that is a really important part of the job.�

Reilly asked the committee to submit around 20 candidates for review, and the Search-and-Screen Committee will also receive the assistance of a search firm to be chosen by chair Marsha Mailick-Seltzer.

�The search firm is here to help us,� Mailick-Seltzer said. �They know people at other universities that are interested in becoming chancellors and � if we ask them to enlarge the pool, they will go out and encourage them to apply.�

Mailick-Seltzer added the search firm would be helpful in organizing the meeting schedule when semi-final candidates would be interviewed.

Reilly urged the committee members to take their jobs very seriously and expressed how important confidentiality is to this search.

�We will lose good people unless we can keep their names confidential up to the point where they have to be made public,� Reilly said. �If names are made public before then � Madison and the System will develop a reputation as a place that does that to candidates, and it will make subsequent searches harder down the road.�

Reilly and Mailick-Seltzer also stressed the importance of staying on a strict time schedule. They would like to have a new chancellor in place by September, and they would like to have time for the finalists to come and speak before this semester�s exam period starts, Reilly said.

�We certainly need to move in a deliberate fashion and not rush anything, but where we can move things along, cumulatively that will make a difference in our ability to meet the deadlines,� Mailick-Seltzer added.

Mailick-Seltzer said the committee members will be working very closely with one another and all decisions will be made together. The committee will be voting formally throughout their decision-making process rather than just having group consensus.

�This is a very compressed process and we will be spending a lot of time together. Part of what happens is that we get to know each other and build consensus on a pretty intense basis,� Mailick-Seltzer said. �As a result of that, we will not be working in subcommittees.�

Nominations for the chancellor position are already filtering in and the committee will begin submitting nominations themselves shortly.