The Presidential Search Committee met twice during winter break, identifying candidates out of a pool of more than 1,000 names.

Brian Dorrington, senior director of university communication, said the search committee plans to bring its recommendations for the new president to the Board of Trustees in the spring. After the Board of Trustees is given the recommendations by the search committee, it will then appoint the next university president.

Dorrington said this timescale is on track with the August 2014 deadline for having a new president. The committee is working with the national executive search firm, Witt/Kieffer, to “identify the best candidates – Jesuit or layperson – and actively recruit these individuals,” Dorrington said in an email.

In early December, John Ferraro, chair of the presidential search committee and a member of the Board of Trustees, said this part of the search process is important to finding the new president.

“This period is a critical period for people to nominate,” he said in an interview with the Tribune. “The next step, then, will be to filter that and get a pool of the top prospects and that will get vetting . . . and we will go from there to create a list of the finalist.”

Ferraro also commented on interim University President the Rev. Robert A. Wild’s temporary tenure.

“Father Wild has been doing a fantastic job in the interim president,” Ferraro said. One major decision Wild made in his interim presidency was to switch Marquette over to a “strong provost” model, from a shared governance model that he introduced in 2007. A strong provost structure places the provost as the chief academic officer and the second-ranking member of university administration.

“I am very impressed with what he is doing. He is also being very mindful in not making decisions that the next president will have to inherit – so not long-term decisions.”