Of the four chancellor candidates, two finalists remain, both calm and collected after their final interviews with the SIU Board of Trustees on June 3 at The Stone Center.

Sabah Randhawa, executive vice president and provost at Oregon State University since 2005, was the first to be interviewed.

In the last five to six years, Oregon State University’s overall student involvement has grown by about 50 percent, with underrepresented minorities jumping from 13 percent to 22 percent and international students from 4 percent to 11 percent, Randhawa said.

During his career at Oregon State, he said the university also changed from a land-grant institution to a premier research university.

He said while short-term challenges such as state budget cuts for higher education exist, keeping a long-term focus is crucial for the university.

“An expectation that things will change overnight with anyone coming in is unrealistic,” he said. “What is really, in my view, needed is a long-term plan and a long-term focus of building the institution.” 

Susan Ford, the acting provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at SIU, was interviewed shortly after Randhawa.

Ford finished her 36th year of involvement at SIU in the spring, serving multiple roles within the university such as professor, assistant professor, associate professor, chair of the Department of Anthropology and interim dean of the Graduate School.

“We’re going to reshape and change this university out of what it already is,” Ford said. “I think there is an advantage of knowing the history, knowing the processes that currently exist, knowing the people and knowing the structure so I can use that knowledge and investment to help build and move things into the future.”

She said she has a good sense of the university’s spending in anticipation for next year’s budget.

While there is no set date as to when a decision will be made, it could be as early as the end of this week, university spokesperson Rae Goldsmith said.

Chase Myers can be reached at [email protected]