Kieft agrees to stay on
by N.S. Garcia
The Metropolitan.
 Danny
Holland / The Metropolitan
Interim president Ray Kieft (right), and Chair of the Board of Trustees
Bruce Benson (left), laugh while listening to athletic director Joan McDermott
deliver an update on the athletics department in the Board of Trustees
meeting Nov. 10. The board also heard from Auraria Higher Education Center
regarding the possibility of a new $40 per semester student fee for controlled
maintenance.
Interim President Ray Kieft agreed in the Nov. 10 meeting to run Metro
through the Spring semester or until the Board of Trustees hires a permanent
president .
Vowing to find “The President” for Metro, Board of Trustees
Chairman Bruce Benson said he wants the entire community to take part
in the search.
“When you do a search it is not always the people who send in their
resumes in response to ads in the newspaper, it’s the ones you go
out and look for,” he said.
Facing a petition by students to appoint Kieft, and a staff wanting a
president, Benson said he and the presidential search advisory committee
are doing all they can and questioned the community involvement.
“I’d like to ask how many of you have actually gone out and
solicited and tried to find a president?” he asked. “I would
urge everyone to participate—this is an open process and everybody
should be working on it so we can find that great president.”
Benson suggested the committee would soon move to a short list of candidates
.
“I think that Ray Kieft has done a fabulous job for us. He came
in, took over, and he’s done a lot of really important things and
there’s still a few more things for him to keep doing,” Benson
commented.
Kieft, who has been the interim president since Shelia Kaplan’s
departure in June of 2003, submitted his resume to the trustees on Aug.
4.
“They’re moving as quickly as they can,” he said. He
said he’s staying positive about the process.
Metro’s Student Government Assembly sent a letter to the Board
of Trustees endorsing Kieft.
The letter, signed by President Candace Gill reads, “Dr. Raymond
Kieft is the best choice for President of MSCD, based on a year of strong
leadership and cooperative management at the college. Metro State is suffering
under its ongoing status as an ‘interim’ college, and needs
a proactive president, who combines knowledge of this unique school with
the expertise and positive ideology that will get the job done. That president
is already serving the college…”
In the same meeting, Metro’s trustees also approved the hiring
on an internal auditor, whose responsibility would be to audit Metro and
Auraria Higher Education Center, the state organization responsible for
the upkeep of the Auraria campus.
Communications, Institutional Relations and Equal Employment Officer
of AHEC Julie Hughes said AHEC is already audited by the state. However,
she and Dean Wolf, AHEC’s executive vice president for administration,
welcomes any chance to be more efficient.
“We don’t have a problem with it,” Hughes said. “Our
records are open. We feel pretty confident.”
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