The SU presidential search committee announced that they are taking the next step in considering Charles Patterson for a permanent position, an email sent out on Friday, April 8 said.
Dough Harbach, a member of the Board of Trustees and the head of the presidential search committee, said the board had been vetting and interviewing Patterson, the SU interim president, over the past five months.
This next step involves obtaining feedback from students, faculty and staff, he said. The campus community perspectives “will be critically important as the Council of Trustees considers its options.”
An on-campus interview with Patterson is scheduled for Monday, April 18 which will consist of several open forums with students, faculty and staff according to the presidential search committee website.
The first open forum will be at 10:00 a.m. for SU staff. The second forum will be at 11:00 a.m. for faculty. Both will be held in the Ceddia Union Building Multi-Purpose Room. The third forum will be at 3:00 p.m. for students and be held in CUB 119. Zoom links for all forums are availble on the presidential search website.
“Shippensburg University finds itself in a unique position,” Harbach said. “Our current interim president brings an understanding of our institution and system from the experience of serving as president at another PASSHE institution along with his interim presidency here. Coupled with the allowance by the PA State System of Higher Education to explore an interim and their candidacy before deciding to recruit additional candidates, the search committee has chosen to explore just the candidacy of Dr. Patterson more fully.”
Patterson was appointed as the SU interim president in April 2021, after then-President, Laurie Carter, announced she would be leaving to serve as the president of Lawrence University in Wisconsin. He arrived at SU in July 2021. Prior to this, Patterson was the president of SU sister-school Mansfield University and served as an executive in the U.S. Department of Education.
To stay up to date on the presidential search progress, visit www.ship.edu/presidential-search/.
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