Candidates will visit Northern

After a three-month search, members of the community will have a chance to talk with two finalists for the provost position at Montana State University-Northern. Dr. Peter Johnstone will be on campus Wednesday through Friday, and Dr. Stephen Adkison will be here Wednesday, March 31, through Thursday, April 1. Both will interview for the position, speak with college leadership and administration, and tour the campus and the community. A public forum for each will be held, with Johnstone's Thursday at 7 a.m. in the Student Union Building and Adkison's March 31 at 7 a.m., also in the SUB. A search committee began searching for a new provost after Joe Callahan announced his plan last year to retire June 30. "A search like this always takes a lot of time because you want to be very careful and deliberative," said Kathy Jaynes, with Northern's Human Resources department. The search pulled in roughly 70 applicants, she said. "We had a lot of people, and they were from all over the country," she said. "So we were really pleased with the quality of candidates and the number." Johnstone holds a doctorate in law and criminal justice, a bachelor's degree in justice studies and a post-graduate certificate in education. In the more than 20 years he has been in the education field, he has served in numerous offices, including as the deputy chancellor and chief academic officer at Pennsylvania State University's Abington campus and as associate dean at East Carolina University. Adkison has more than 15 years of experience in the academic field and holds a doctorate in English/rhetoric and composition, a master's degree in English/ writing and a bachelor's degree in English/teaching. Most recently he has served as the associate provost/associate vice president for academic programming and review at Idaho State University, where he also held other positions. He has also worked as a writing consultant and graduate teaching fellow, among other things, at the University of Nevada, Reno. The search commitTee is meeting next week and may or may not decide to invite a third finalist to campus, Jaynes said. "That's kind of an unknown at this time," she said. Regardless of how many candidates are interviewed, the goal is to have a new provost on campus June 1, she added, who will oversee everyday academic operations, academic units for the college of education, arts and sciences and nursing and the college of technical sciences, the extended and online portion of programming, graduate programs, as well as oversee the library.