The presidential search committee narrowed down the pool of potential candidates for the next president Thursday, ultimately naming six it would ask to formally apply for the position.

The committee will publicly interview the selected candidates that choose to apply Wednesday before sending its recommendations to the LSU Board of Supervisors for the final vote.

Thursday’s meeting had a total of nine public comments spanning from members of LSU’s Students for a Democratic Society to two Boyd professors, a survey presentation with input from employees from each LSU campus and an executive session for the committee to discuss applicants.

Committee members Olivia Phelps and Daniel Tirone conducted a two-week survey to garner opinion from employees across all eight LSU campuses. In total, Phelps said over 1,350 LSU faculty and staff responded with input that outlined their hopes for the next president.

“The message that we received from faculty and staff was clear: that LSU’s greatest strength is our people, and the next president has to be someone who listens, builds trust and engages with our campus community,” Phelps said.

The candidates were assembled and vetted by SSA Consulting. The firm’s CEO Christel Slaughter said it compiled a list of 30 interested parties in the pool of presidential candidates. This list was broken down into four parts: the top five, a second tier of five, 20 other candidates and five applicants who will not be moving forward in this process with LSU.

One of the top candidates chose to remain anonymous. The candidate, who has a doctorate and experience as a senior vice president for academic affairs and a chief academic officer,  was formally introduced to the committee as “Confidential #4769.”

Louisiana’s public records law makes some exceptions for certain employment-related information to protect applicant privacy before a job offer is made. Applicants for high-level positions at public universities, like a university president, can choose to withhold names, current employment, educational background and other identifying information.

Some board members were critical of these laws at the meeting, saying they made the process of finding qualified candidates more difficult.

“I hope that the media, and especially throughout the state government, take note of the gymnastics that you have to go through under the current state laws in open meetings to get to excellent candidates,” said Roger Ogden, a member of the LSU Foundation’s Board of Directors. “It is not a current law that encourages greater inquiry for applications.”

During their hour-and-20-minute executive session intermission, the committee privately discussed the candidates the committee would urge to move forward in the application process. Before this, the committee passed amendments to ensure the integrity of the applicants they want in their process.

The first was proposed by  James Williams, who put forward the motion to exclude redacted individuals from moving further in the application process if they do not give their identity by the interview date.

Rémy Starns proposed the second amendment, which narrowed the list down to the following candidates: Julius Fridriksson, current Interim President Matt Lee, Robert Robbins, Wade Rousse, Giovanni Piedimonte and candidate #4769, if they reveal their identity to the public before the interview Wednesday.

The search committee will now hold public interviews with the candidates that choose to apply Wednesday starting at 9 a.m.

“We are inviting people to formally apply and be interviewed next week, and so whether they apply or not is up to them,” LSU Vice President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel Trey Jones said after the meeting.

In addition to the interviews, the committee also said it would meet with key LSU stakeholders including the Board of Supervisors, chancellors at the LSU system universities, Boyd Professors, faculty, students and donors. It is unclear when these meetings will occur since the committee will make its top recommendations Wednesday, but it previously said they would occur between Wednesday and next Tuesday.

These meetings will familiarize the committee with different groups’ preferences and inform which three candidates the committee recommends to the Board of Supervisors.

After the committee recommends its finalists, the Board of Supervisors will hold a special session, yet to be scheduled, to vote on the university’s next president.

Read more about the candidates for LSU’s next president here.