NDSU has narrowed down its presidential candidate search and continues to go through the selection process.

Next semester’s president has been narrowed down to three candidates. The North Dakota State University search committee has been looking for the 15th President over the past several months and the search is soon coming to an end. The three candidates ​​are David Cook, Hesham El-Rewini and Mary Holz-Clause. 

The committee will announce the final candidate after they meet for final interviews on Feb. 23. 

These top three candidates have been through numerous interviews, meet-and-greets and have interacted with NDSU students. The final president will be selected and start around June of 2022. 

These candidates started with a pool of 47 applicants who were considered by the search committee. The committee narrowed it down to three candidates on Feb. 4. 

David Cook

David Cook is currently the Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs and Academic Development at Kansas University. He has worked to expand the research park on campus. He worked for 14 years at the University of Kansas Medical Center and received tenure in the school of medicine and became a full professor in the college of liberal arts and sciences. 

Cook spoke about his plans for the university. His future plans include looking at research, increasing enrollment rates and engagement. “It is about educating more students and changing more people’s lives,” said Cook. He also has a passion for first-generation college students, as he was when he first went to college. “You have to make this a welcoming place,” said Cook. 

Hesham El-Rewini

Hesham El-Rewini is currently the Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs at Marymount University. He has been an engineer, a department chair and a dean of students. He has previously worked at the University of North Dakota as a dean and professor in the College of Engineering and Mines from 2008 to 2019, according to NDSU. 

He is also a first generation college graduate and speaks of how his parents taught him to love learning. His baseline and foundation of the future of NDSU is to, “Nurture a culture of trust, openness, transparency and positivity,” said El-Rewini. Other important aspects he speaks of are to embrace diversity and inclusion, collaboration and focus on what makes NDSU different from other universities. His main goal is to have NDSU thrive, not only survive, especially facing the challenges of the pandemic. 

Mary Holz-Clause

Mary Holz-Clause has been a chancellor at the University of Minnesota Crookston since 2017. She was Dean of Agriculture at Cal Poly Pomona. She was also vice president for economic development at the University of Connecticut, associate vice president for extension and associate director of extension at Iowa State. 

She spoke on celebrating the success of NDSU, to serve everyone, to promote knowledge, increasing outreach to the community and the world. “It’s about that friendly approach that we have with our students,” said Holz-Clause. In her research she has found and focused on the needs and wants of students, in-person and online, as well as what employers are looking for in students. 

To learn more about the presidential candidates click here.