Committee named to search for Northwestern’s 18th president

A Presidential Search Committee has been appointed to advise the Board of Trustees in selecting the University’s next president, Board Chair Peter Barris announced today.

The individual selected will succeed interim President Henry S. Bienen, who stepped back into the role in August. Bienen served as president of Northwestern from 1995 to 2009 and advanced Northwestern across many important dimensions, including undergraduate competitiveness, growth in scale and excellence of the research enterprise, and improved financial strength and stability.

The committee will conduct a global search and immediately begin its work to identify Northwestern’s next president. To ensure a thorough and thoughtful process, no specific timeline or deadline to welcome the new president has been set.

The committee includes a wide range of faculty members and Board of Trustees members, as well as a representative from Northwestern’s alumni association, a current student and a staff member. Steve Cahillane, vice chair of the Board of Trustees, will serve as chair of the search committee.

“I am honored to be entrusted to lead the search for Northwestern’s next president,” Cahillane said. “The search committee looks forward to working with the community to hone our understanding of the many opportunities for the University. I am confident we will identify a great leader to harness those opportunities for the advancement of Northwestern.”

Share your thoughts with the search committee

Members of the Northwestern community are encouraged to share thoughts on institutional priorities and the qualities the University should seek in its 18th president. A submission form for feedback and instructions for submitting nominations is available on the Presidential Search website. The committee will announce additional opportunities for engagement as the process moves forward. Input from these channels will inform the fundamental components of the formal position description and the search committee’s lens for this global search. They will also aid the next president in acclimating to their tenure at Northwestern.

The committee

The search committee, charged with building a deeply qualified pool of candidates and conducting outreach and interviews, ultimately will make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees for election of the next president. 

The committee will be staffed by Julie Allen, board secretary and advisor to the president, and Nathan Taylor, assistant vice president for board strategy and communications. Global leadership advisory firm Spencer Stuart has been retained to assist the committee.

The search committee was selected from nominations made by University leadership, and is comprised of the following:

Trustees

• Steve Cahillane ’87 (’17, ’19 P), Chair of the Search Committee
• Courtney Armstrong ’93, ’97 JD, MBA
• Heather B. Baker ’92 (’30 P)
• Peter J. Barris ’73 (’11, ’18 P), Chair of the Board
• Jane Hoffman ’86 (’12, ’21 P)
• Adam Karr ’93 (’25, ’27 P), Vice Chair of the Board
• Jennifer Leischner Litowitz ’91 (’22 P, ’27 P)
• Milton M. Morris ’92, ’04 MBA
• Kimberly Querrey (’22, ’23 P)
• Patrick G. Ryan, Jr. ’97 JD, MBA
• David Sachs ’81 (’15, ’18 P)
• Mike Shannon ’83 MBA (’10, ’15 P), Vice Chair of the Board
• Tim Sullivan (’25 P)

Faculty

• Ian Hurd, Professor, Political Science; Director, Roberta Buffett International Studies Program; President, Faculty Senate; Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
• Susan Quaggin, Chair, Department of Medicine; Director, Feinberg Cardiovascular and Renal Research Institute; Irving S. Cutter Professor of Medicine; Professor, Medicine (Nephrology and Hypertension); Feinberg School of Medicine
• Ted Sargent, Lynn Hopton Davis and Greg Davis Professor of Chemistry; Executive Director, Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
• Natasha Trethewey, Board of Trustees Professor of English; Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Student

• Jackson Gordwin ’25, JD Candidate; Pritzker School of Law

Staff

• Lesley-Ann Brown-Henderson, Assistant Vice President and Chief of Staff; Student Affairs

Alumni leadership

• Kristin McDonnell ’85 (’21, ’23, ’25 P), President, Northwestern Alumni Association; Ex Officio Trustee