Illinois State University's Board of Trustees has voted to accept the resignation of now-former president Terri Goss Kinzy, the 20th person to hold that role and the first woman to lead the university.
The vote followed a nearly two-hour closed executive session of the board Friday afternoon. No discussion came from the board before or after the votes.
Replacing Kinzy is the former vice president of academic affairs and provost, Aondover Tarhule, who joined the university in 2020.
Tarhule called the opportunity to serve as interim president a great honor and said he was deeply "humbled" by the board's decision and trust.
"I will do my very best to earn that trust," he said. "I will work tirelessly to build trust, strengthen shared understanding of the university's issues and priorities, and work closely with the board and university leadership."
In a debrief with reporters after Friday’s meeting, Tarhule said his transition came as a bit of a surprise to him.
“Things happened very quickly. Many of us, like most people listening, were not aware of the discussions that were going on,” he said. “So to the extent that some people were surprised, I share that. I certainly didn’t think at the beginning of the year that I would be standing here as interim president.”
Echoing comments he made during the meeting, Tarhule said he feels optimistic about ISU’s future, noting that for a time, things were “flat in a variety of ways.”
“I think we actually have the opportunity to make this an inflection point where ISU, if you will, comes out of its shell, and accomplishes (things) at a higher level and at a higher stage than we have done in the past,” he said.
Tarhule’s tenure as interim president is set to end on June 30, 2024. When asked whether he would consider remaining president beyond that date, Tarhule said “we’ll see.”
“Ask me in another six months and I’ll give you a better answer,” he said.
Interim board chair Kathy Bohn told reporters Tarhule had the board's confidence that "he is the person to lead us."
"Whenever any of the Board of Trustees has asked him anything, he can answer those questions almost immediately. If he doesn't know the answer, he gets back to us very quickly with the answer and he's always appropriate," she said. "We just know he can lead this university forward."
Following Tarhule assuming the role of interim president, associate provost Ani Yazedjian has been promoted to acting provost. Yazedjian joined the Office of the Provost in 2019 and has held a number of positions within ISU, including chairing the Department of Consumer and Family Sciences and overseeing the Center for Civic Engagement, the Office of International Education, and University Assessment Services, according to a news release. Tarhule said the search for a replacement for Yazedjian would begin shortly.
Public comment during Friday's meeting included just one speaker: Ph.D. student Steven Lazaroff, who had previously spoken with WGLT regarding concern for a lack of "transparency" surrounding Kinzy's abrupt departure.
Asked by WGLT whether comments and public concerns about transparency had merit, Bohn said she couldn't comment on that, adding "but thank you for asking."
During an update to the board on behalf of the Campus Communication Committee, Civil Service chair Stuart Palmer said the group wanted to “thank President Kinzy for her service,” urged the trustees to have a “nationwide, open search” — and left it at that.
“As part of shared governance, we don’t have a say in what the board does,” Palmer told WGLT afterward. “The Board of Trustees oversees the president’s office and the provost’s office, so we thought it best to thank President Kinzy and move on and encourage the board … to go back to the way that searches used to be: Where they would be open, so that the finalists would be presented to campus … and there would be more points of feedback to the board prior to making a hiring decision."
Kinzy became president of ISU in May 2021 after a closed search process. Trustee Julie Jones, who was board chair at the time, said in a previous interview the goal had been to broaden the search pool so that it included more diverse candidates.
"It's believed by some that the candidates who are sitting presidents or vice presidents might be somewhat hesitant to participate in a public search for a real concern that their current position might be in jeopardy if they were not selected for our position," Jones told WGLT in 2021.
Remarks from the board during Friday's meeting did not indicate what its plans are to permanently fill ISU's highest position come July 2024. Earlier in the week, ISU said "information regarding a presidential search will be provided by the Board of Trustees later."
