The Board of Regents has received no further applications for the position of Commissioner of Higher Education despite hiring a professional search firm nearly four months ago.
 
Greenwood/Asher and Associates Inc. has been actively recruiting applicants from around the nation to fill the position, but efforts by the firm have yet to produce any results, said Meg Casper, Regents spokeswoman.
 
Casper said the only formal applicants to date remain the four candidates who applied prior to the hiring of the firm.
 
These lacking results have led some to question the hiring of the roughly $70,000 Florida-based search firm, but Casper said no judgment concerning the efficiency of the firm has or can be made at this point.
 
“There’s no judgment because [the Regents] haven’t seen an outcome,” she said. “There has been no discussion that the Board is unhappy.”
 
However, the Board has continued to discuss the need for a qualified commissioner.
 
“It will be critical that we hire an innovative, passionate and thoughtful commissioner to lead us through the coming years of change and improvement,” Robert Levy, newly-elected Regents chairman, said at the Jan. 6 meeting.
 
Levy said the new commissioner will be pursued with an “appropriate amount of diligence” and within the “not-so-distant future.”
 
The Board projected to have a finalist selected by December, but the date has since been delayed.
 
“We are hoping to have a finalist by February, but we will have to see,” Casper said.
 
Following the Regents’ selection, the new commissioner and his or her salary must be approved by the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget, the group that denied former prospect Tom Layzell’s compensation package for being “too costly” last August.
 
Louisiana is one of the few states that require this approval process, which could be linked to the minimal number of applicants the Board has seen.
 
“[The Board] will go and try to get it approved beforehand,” Casper said. “But yes, clearly there is some apprehension.”
 
The Board has operated without a permanent or interim commissioner since the resignation of former Commissioner Sally Clausen in June.
 
 
 
 
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Contact Sydni Dunn at [email protected]