Position Description

POSITION DESCRIPTION
CHANCELLOR
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CARBONDALE

Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIU Carbondale) is celebrating 150 years of providing an outstanding education to students from around the world, and of ground-breaking research and creative activities. To build on this enviable record, the University seeks a chancellor to lead it forward to new levels of success.

As the State of Illinois emerges from recent budget and political crises and significantly invests in higher education, SIU Carbondale is repositioning itself to take fullest advantage of higher education’s new reality. The flagship of the Southern Illinois University System, SIU Carbondale has in recent years undertaken multiple initiatives to stem enrollment declines while maintaining its status as a comprehensive, doctoral university with high research activity. The University community stands ready to coalesce behind a new leader who demonstrates a successful track record as an agent of change, a builder of trusting relationships, and an unrelenting champion of students, scholarship and research in order to assure the institution’s long-term success.

Accomplishing this feat will require a leader with a deep and actionable understanding of higher education in its current circumstances. That leader will possess an earned terminal degree and a history of transparency, active communication and inclusive decision-making. Strategic planning skills and experience are required, and superior strategic thinking is of the utmost importance. While the ideal candidate will possess a record of teaching and scholarship consistent with an appointment to the faculty at the rank of professor with tenure, outstanding candidates who demonstrate the necessary skills and experience but do not qualify for an appointment to the faculty also will be considered. Of the greatest import is a leader with a commitment to doing the right thing in the face of competing interests and political pressures, the ability to implement difficult decisions and thus create institutional change and the persistence necessary to see those initiatives through to fruition.

SIU Carbondale’s new chancellor will have the opportunity to make a historic impact on a venerable, nationally recognized institution with a storied history and compelling, contemporary mission, serving students from throughout the United States and across the world.

Inquiries, nominations and applications are invited. For formal consideration, applicants must submit a resume/curriculum vitae, the names and contact information for five references and a letter of application in response to the opportunities and expectations described within the leadership profile to SIUCchancellor@wittkieffer.com. Candidate confidentiality will be respected, and references will not be contacted without prior knowledge and approval of candidates.

Material that must be mailed may be sent to:

Chancellor
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
c/o WittKieffer
Attention: Dennis M. Barden, Melissa Fincher and Breanna Liddell
2015 Spring Road, Suite 510
Oak Brook, IL 60523

For fullest consideration, application materials should be received by December 31, 2019.

Confidential inquiries and questions may be directed to the WittKieffer consultants supporting this search at 630-575-6152.

SIU Carbondale is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer of individuals with disabilities and protected veterans that strives to enhance its ability to develop a diverse faculty and staff and to increase its potential to serve a diverse student population. All applications are welcomed and encouraged and will receive consideration.